THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 EX LIBRIS
 
 LETTERS 
 
 AND 
 
 JOURNALS 
 
 OF 
 
 MRS. CALDERWOOD 
 
 OF 
 
 POLTON
 
 LETTERS AND JOURNALS OF 
 
 MRS. CALDERWOOD OF POLTON 
 
 FROM ENGLAND HOLLAND AND 
 THE LOW COUNTRIES IN 1756 
 
 EDITED BY ALEXANDER FERGUSSON, LIEUT.-COLONEL 
 
 Author of 'HENRY ERSKINE AND HIS KINSFOLK,' etc. 
 
 EDINBURGH 
 
 PRINTED FOR DAVID DOUGLAS 
 
 MDCCCLXXXIV
 
 PRINTED BY T. AND A. CONSTABLE, PRINTERS TO HER MAJESTY 
 AT THE EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY PRESS
 
 College 
 Library 
 
 TO 
 
 THE MEMORY OF 
 LILIAS CALDERWOOD DURHAM, 
 
 MRS. DUNDAS DURHAM OF LARGO AND POLTON, 
 'THE LAST OF THE CALDERWOODS' 
 
 Cjjis Oolume 
 
 IS INSCRIBED. 
 
 A M 
 
 \f\ 
 
 JLvJ
 
 -The more I think of it I find this conclusion more 
 
 impressed upon me that the greatest thing a human soul ever 
 does in this world is to see something, and tell what it saw 
 in a plain way. Hundreds of people can talk for one who can 
 think; but thousands can think for one who can see. To see 
 clearly is poetry, prophecy, and religion all in one.' 
 
 John Ruskin.
 
 TO THE READER 
 
 A MONGST those who think and 
 read there are some who feel it 
 to be a characteristic of much of the 
 writing of the present day, that the 
 refinement of modern phrasing, 
 sweetly modulated diction, and 
 extreme polish, have been carried 
 to a point where the vigour of 
 sound English is endangered; even 
 as we have seen pictures lose what 
 of strength they may have had, by 
 an excessive use of c finish.' To 
 some feeling of this kind may, per- 
 haps, be due the fact that, of late, 
 the even tenour of one-coloured
 
 viii TO THE READER 
 
 narrative in several modern stories 
 has been relieved effectively by 
 dashes of strong unvarnished talk, 
 plain and homely, put into the 
 mouths of old Scotch ladies. The 
 process has been effective, more or 
 less, according as it approached, or 
 fell short of, reality. 
 
 In the following letters and jour- 
 nals we see how a well-born Scots 
 lady of the last century thought and 
 wrote. They are a literary curiosity, 
 and over and above the interest they 
 possess, without an undue admix- 
 ture of Scotch words, have a value 
 as a standard of the purest Scottish 
 idiom. Accordingly it is thought 
 they will be welcomed by all who, 
 like Mr. Ruskin, can appreciate the
 
 TO THE READER ix 
 
 language of Scott, and of our 
 grandmothers ; and can discriminate 
 between it and inferior imitations, 
 even as he c knows Horatian Latin 
 from modern and scientific ditto.' 
 
 Mrs. Calderwood wrote not with 
 a c flourit pen.' But, as a very dis- 
 tinguished countryman of hers has 
 said, in connection with another 
 matter, her c notion of style was to 
 fold words as closely as possible 
 round the very things she meant ; 
 and she used, with more or less of 
 tact, every means for that purpose 
 that her English [or Scotch] afforded.' 
 
 It will be allowed that in her 
 remarks on persons and things that 
 came under her notice, and in her 
 descriptions of those simple appear-
 
 x TO THE READER 
 
 ances which we now suppose to be 
 known, she is as cogent, and as much 
 to the point, as ever her brilliant 
 nephews were ; namely, Henry Ers- 
 kine, the Lord Advocate of Scot- 
 land ; and Thomas Erskine, Lord 
 High Chancellor of Great Britain. 
 
 For ' closeness ' of writing there 
 are passages that would have de- 
 lighted Charles Reade. Probably 
 no single line in his c Wandering 
 Heir' contains more than this of 
 Mrs. Calderwood's, c he dying, the 
 mother bred the children popish, and 
 lived here.' Then there are touches, 
 whether altogether original or not, 
 that deserve to be remembered; as 
 that regarding the Flemish Jewess, 
 who, by her marriage, c pleased her
 
 TO THE READER xi 
 
 eye, but vexed her heart.' A writer 
 who alludes to her infant grandson 
 as a c hellicat thief must be classed 
 among the originals. 
 
 The narrative of her journey is 
 little, if at all, known to many in 
 Scotland. Even to many of those 
 who are connected with Mrs. Calder- 
 wood by birth, it will be new; 
 though it does not now appear for 
 the first time. Forty-two years ago it 
 was printed, just as the writer left the 
 bare MS., by the Maitland Club; but 
 their books were c privately printed,' 
 were not published, nor for sale. 
 Consequently, the bulky quarto vol- 
 ume, entitled the Coltness Collections , 
 admirably put together by the late 
 Mr. James Dennistoun of Dennistouri,
 
 xii TO THE READER 
 
 which contains, amongst other things, 
 Mrs. Calderwood's journal and letters, 
 is rarely to be met with, except in 
 public libraries, or in the collections 
 of book-hunters. When a copy is 
 by chance offered for sale, it fetches 
 a large price. 
 
 Such being the case, it was the 
 opinion of several that the narrative 
 might be read with interest if pre- 
 sented in a convenient form, and with 
 such explanatory matter as would 
 make it intelligible to readers in the 
 present day. The favourable recep- 
 tion accorded by English critics to 
 the few short specimens of these 
 letters submitted, not long ago, to the 
 judgment of readers, has confirmed 
 this idea. With this view one or
 
 TO THE READER xiii 
 
 two letters hitherto imprinted have 
 been added. 
 
 In furtherance of this object Mr. 
 Robert Dundas of Arniston, the di- 
 rect descendant of Mrs. Calderwood, 
 and her representative, has afforded 
 assistance which has been of the ut- 
 most value. 
 
 Besides an Introductory Chapter, 
 necessarily much condensed, showing 
 who those Calderwoods and Steuarts 
 were, and the occasion of the letters, 
 it has been attempted to compare 
 small things with great to do for 
 these writings, as far as has been 
 possible, what has been so excellently 
 done, in the way of elucidation, by 
 Peter Cunningham and Moy Thomas 
 respectively, for the correspondence
 
 xiv TO THE READER 
 
 of the two great English letter- writers 
 
 of the last century. 
 
 ' History,' wrote Michelet, c ought 
 to be a resurrection.' Accordingly, 
 it is thought, these unvarnished 
 sketches may serve, in some degree, 
 to illustrate a very interesting period 
 in Scottish annals. 
 
 A. F. 
 
 Lennox Street, Edinburgh, 
 October 1884.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 To THE READER, .... page vii 
 
 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 
 
 Sir Walter Scott on Scotch dialect: Old Scots ladies: Sir 
 Walter's forecast : Country ladies as critics : Effective Scots 
 narrative : Provost Stewart of Kirkfield : Anna Hope : 
 ' Lady Gutters ' : Sir James Steuart of Goodtrees : Bishop 
 Leighton at Goodtrees : James Steuart in hiding : Pardoned : 
 1688: Lord Advocate: Solicitor-General Coltness ' : 
 Calderwoods of Polton : Agnes, Countess of Buchan : Sir 
 James Steuart of Coltness and Lady Frances Wemyss : 
 Letter from Paris : Lady Buchan's Letter : Jacobite Exiles : 
 Start of the Calderwoods, . . . page xxi 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Over the Border : Sunday in England : Durham Cathedral : 
 A Highwayman : Rachel, the Chambermaid : Irish or 
 Welsh : Impressions of England : The Cattle : The People : 
 Their Talk : Comparisons of Land Tenure : Population, 
 Trade, and Wages : London Gossip: Vauxhall and Ranelagh: 
 The Duke in Hyde Park : Food and Cookery : Mr. Traill 
 of Jamaica : English Vapours, ... 3
 
 xvi CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 On the Road for Harwich : Cattle Plague : Fish Ponds and 
 Swine : Visit to Provost Stewart at Mitcham : Colchester : 
 The Harwich Packets : The Calderwoods embark : Fellow 
 Passengers : Dr. Monro : Peter Dondie : The Opera 
 Dancer : King's Messengers : Misery at Sea : Helvoet 
 Sluys: A disputed landing: Helvoet to Rotterdam: Life 
 at the Swyn's Hooft: Dutch currency, . page 37 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Preliminary Note : Rotterdam depicted : Canals and Coaches : 
 Horses and Horse-chairs : Boompjees : Markets : Dutch 
 Houses : The Beds : Pewter Work : Mr. Crawfurd's 
 House : Peats and Charcoal : The Secret of Dutch 
 Bleaching : Worship of the Herring : Dutch Farming : 
 A Dutch Sunday : The People criticised : Character and 
 Appearance : Dutch Vivers : Delft to the Hague, . 6 1 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 At the Hague : The Light-headed English : Dr. Monro cross- 
 examined : The Dutch Court : The ( Princess Governante ' : 
 Princess Caroline : The Young Stadtholder : States Chambers : 
 ' House in the Wood ' : Scheveling : Arbours and Summer- 
 houses : A Burgomaster's Politics : The Anabaptist Pro- 
 fessor's Views : Dutch Jews : The Burgomaster's gratitude : 
 Fair at Harlem : Amsterdam : Frederic the Great incognito : 
 Philosophy of Travel, . . . .92
 
 CONTENTS xvii 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Preliminary Note: The 'Track-Scoot': Esthetics of the 
 Dutch : Extortion : Canal Scenes : Fletcher of Salton and 
 the Skipper : Church at Targow : Post Waggon to Rotter- 
 dam : Loss of the Guide-book : Bergen-op-Zoom : The 
 siege criticised : On to Antwerp : Characteristics of Soph. 
 Johnstone : The Bells of Antwerp : Peggie from Edin- 
 burgh : Mass in the great Church : Visit to the English 
 Convent: A Festival, . . . page 119 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Preliminary Note : Antwerp to Tirlemont : Jesuits' College at 
 Louvaine : Roman Catholic Education : Difficulties for 
 Protestant boys : Mr. Needham and Young Townley : Liege 
 and Edinburgh compared : ' Trifoncias ' : Johnston a Scotch 
 impostor : Gordon of Cowbairdy at Liege : The Jesuits' 
 College : Father Blair : Father Daniel and his Opinions : 
 Mrs. Calderwood's views of the Papacy : Field of Rocoux : 
 Meeting with Sir James Steuart : Coal Mines of Liege, 149 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Spa and its Waters : Mr. Luck : Mr. Hay : Dutch Jews in the 
 Ball-room : Mr. Hay's Farro Bank : The Spencers : Young 
 Perry and his Governor : Mrs. Poyntz and the Duchess 
 d' Aremberg : A Jesuit ruse at Liege : The Bishop and Prince 
 of Osburgh : Lady Betty Worsley : Lord Dungarvan and 
 the Hon. H. Boyle : Madame Beaton : Madame Patine : 
 Baron de la Fael : M. de Marr : Madame Hussy : Madame 
 Cresnar : Sir James Steuart and Mons. D'Aubigny, . 1 84
 
 xviii CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 The Capucines at Spa : Catholic Devotions : The ' Ten 
 Commands': At the 'Benediction': A Jacobite Com- 
 munity : Their servants' French : Sir Richard Lyttelton : 
 Mr. Ward : Mr. Burrage : A Hungarian Princess : 
 Industries of Spa : Economies : The Ardennes : Father 
 Needham's experiments : Young Townley : Move towards 
 Brussels : Chaude Fontaine : Gordons of Cowbairdy at 
 Liege : Father Steuart : A young monk of St. Benedict : 
 Tirlemont to Brussels, . . . page 210 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Arrival at Brussels : House-hunting : A friendly Irishman : 
 Mr. Davies : Educational : Veto of the Priest's housekeeper : 
 Boys sent to School : Household matters : Prices of Labour : 
 A Jewess married for love : Difficulties with a Flemish 
 Contract: Currency: ' A Ready-reckoner,' . . 235 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Brussels Streets and Fair : The Manneken Fountain : Water 
 Supply : Church of St. Gudule : The Beguinage : Flemish 
 Charity : Work of the Sisters : Festival of St. Michael : 
 Processions : Taxes and Provisions : Fuel and Stoves : 
 Beauties of Charcoal : Mrs. Calderwood's Secret of the 
 Pen : Fruits of Travel : Continental breadth of vision and 
 politeness, . . . . . . 257 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 Preface to the ' Fourth Volume ' : Brussels, its inhabitants' 
 characteristics : Spanish pride of the Nobility : An Irish
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 xix 
 
 Lady and her daughter : Madame Beaton : Major Ducary 
 of Lord Stair's Regiment: Wanderings of Mme. Beaton: Her 
 French : Her card-playing : Mme. Jolly : Her provisional 
 Baptism: Controversial talk: Gossip: An unfortunate Prince : 
 Dutch Rapacity : Frost and the ' English Key,' page 273 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 An unsuccessful Candidate : His menage : A simple Ice-house : 
 The Sun and Smoke : Mr. Whitnor and the Nuns : Visit 
 to a Convent: English desire of Ease: Unknown to the 
 Scotch: Ceremony of a Nun's Profession: The Sermon 
 and Farewell, ..... 299 
 
 .CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Concerts and Masked Balls : Theatrical : Passage of Arms with 
 Captain Hew: Eccentricities of Captain Hew and Lady 
 Nell: Lord Bellew : Mr. Butler and Mr. O'Farle : At 
 Count Callenberg's : Economy in High places : The Jesuits 
 outwitted : A Scotch Tailor and a Franciscan Friar from the 
 Wars : German and French Politics : Despatch of the MS., 3 20 
 
 L'ENVOI. 
 
 Mrs. Calderwood's writings and style : Her essay in novel- 
 writing : ' Adventures of Fanny Roberts ' : Novel-writing, 
 ancient and modern : Mrs. Calderwood to Mrs. Durham of 
 Largo : ' The Secret Expedition ' : Further wanderings of 
 Sir James Steuart : Lady Mary Wortley Montagu : Arrest 
 and imprisonment of Sir James : ' Aunt Betty ' : Pardon 
 and Return : ' Journal of Factorship ' : Mrs. Calderwood's 
 sons: Subsequent Family History, . . -353 
 
 Genealogical Sketch, . . . . -379
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 POLTON HOUSE ; Etching by W. B. Hole, A.R.S.A., 
 
 on Title-page 
 
 ' THE GLORY OF THE PEN ' (after L. Friedrich, Ulm ; 
 
 1756), drawn by C. M. F., . . page xiv 
 
 ' VELUTI IN SPECULO ; ' designed and drawn by A. F., . xx 
 i8TH CENTURY ORNAMENT ; drawn by C. M. F., . Iviii 
 SIGNATURE OF MRS. CALDERWOOD, . . . 349 
 
 ' A THOUGHT IN THE CANDLEMAKER Row ; ' designed 
 
 and drawn by A. F., . . . . 378
 
 IN TROD UC TOR Y CHA P TER
 
 There is a saying among the Scotch that an ounce of 
 
 mother wit is worth a pound of clergy.' 
 
 ADDISON.
 
 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 
 
 Sir Walter Scott on Scotch dialect : Old Scots ladies : 
 Sir Walter's forecast : Country ladies as critics : 
 Effective Scots narrative: PROVOST STEWART 
 of Kirkfield : Anna Hope : c Lady Gutters ' : 
 SIR JAMES STEUART of Goodtrees : Bishop 
 Leigh ton at Goodtrees : James Steuart in hiding : 
 Pardoned: 1688: Lord Advocate: 'Solicitor- 
 General Coltness ' : Calderwoods of Polton : 
 Agnes, Countess of Euchan : SIR JAMES 
 STEUART of Coltness and LADY FRANCES 
 WEMYSS : Letter from Paris : Lady Euchan s 
 Letter : Jacobite Exiles : Start of the Calder- 
 woods. 
 
 IT is now sixty years since Sir Walter Scott 
 wrote to his friend Constable deploring the speedy 
 extinction, imminent as it seemed to him, if it had 
 not actually taken place, of that class of Scots 
 gentlewomen that he himself delighted to portray ; 
 those fine old ladies who thought and spoke in
 
 xxiv MRS. CALDERWOOD 
 
 racy Scotch, their own native tongue. He recalls 
 with what elegance Mrs. Murray Keith, Lady 
 Dumfries, his own mother, and many other ladies 
 of that day would clothe their quaint ideas in a 
 dialect as different from English as Venetian is 
 from Tuscan speech. It never occurred to any 
 one in those days that Scotch, when spoken as it 
 then was by the learned, and the wise, and the 
 witty, had a trace of vulgarity in it ; on the con- 
 trary, says Sir Walter, c it sounded rather graceful 
 and genteel.' 
 
 But it is certain that Scott took a view some- 
 what too despondent when he wrote in this regret- 
 ful mood. Happily the process of extinction has 
 been more leisurely than was foretold, and the race 
 of old gentlewomen, speaking with perfect purity 
 their own mother tongue, so dear to Scott, and 
 Cockburn, and Dean Ramsay, has proved more 
 tenacious to the soil than was thought for. And it 
 has been the privilege of some still living to hear 
 from venerable lips this gentle Scottish speech, 
 incomparable alike for the expression of pathos and 
 of humour. But it may truly now be said in Sir 
 Walter's phrase ( all this is gone, and the remem- 
 brance will be drowned with us elders of the 
 existing generation.'
 
 INTRODUCTORY xxv 
 
 But if these fine old talkers have hastened thus 
 tardily away, the case is different with the old 
 letter-writers, a class of Scotch ladies even more 
 interesting. They have long been gone, and 
 nought but a memory. It is needless to recount 
 the many different causes that rendered it a 
 necessity that this should be so ; but it is un- 
 doubted that they have done much by their graphic 
 and truthful writing to preserve for us traces of 
 manners, modes of thought, and speech that other- 
 wise would have been lost. How it is that these 
 ladies have given such a distinct character to Scotch 
 narrative writing may be, perhaps, explained partly 
 by their position, and partly by national tempera- 
 ment. 
 
 Those ruthless correspondents in the last cen- 
 tury, like Mrs, Mure of Caldwell, or before her, 
 Elizabeth Mure, with many others that might 
 be named, who swept the face of society with their 
 light artillery, whose pens were arms of precision 
 effective to pick off the prominent characters of the 
 hour with the most delicate of sharpshooting, were 
 of that well-defined sphere of Edinburgh society 
 which rendered everything possible to them in the 
 way of fearless and effective criticism which their 
 natural talents enabled them to make. Things
 
 xxvi MRS. CALDERWOOD 
 
 were done, and said, and written by ladies of this 
 class which would not have been borne at the 
 hands of persons of lower degree. There was, it 
 is true, a line which might not be passed, as may be 
 seen by those who read with a careful eye, but it 
 is acknowledged it is not always easy to discern 
 this line. 
 
 The best of these letter-writers were as a rule 
 country gentlefolk who came occasionally to town. 
 Along with an enjoyment of town gaiety, all the 
 more keen because of the rarity of such pleasures 
 which expense and bad roads entailed, city manners 
 were a never-failing subject of interest to those who 
 knew how to observe. How quaintly, for instance, 
 and with what force does Lady Elliot Murray write 
 from Edinburgh the result of her observations ; 
 that f the misses are the most rotten part of the 
 society ; ' c envy and jealousy of their rivals,' she 
 says, f are the absorbing objects of their lives.' 
 But, it is admitted, t there are many worthy, agree- 
 able, well- principled people, if you get over the 
 language, manners, and adress, which at first are 
 striking.' 
 
 This was from a critic whose study had been 
 nature and a few standard books ; to whom much 
 laborious needle-work, and silent communing with
 
 INTRODUCTORY xxvii 
 
 her own thoughts, had given a feeling akin to the 
 1 exaltation of loneliness,' and a stand-point higher 
 than that of the city folks so freely canvassed. 
 
 It has more than once been stated fortunately 
 by writers who had no Scotch prejudices that 
 there appears to have been in Scotland, in the old 
 time, a gift so common as to seem almost a 
 national characteristic, of facility and felicity of 
 expression, combined with the clearest inward 
 sight, of the character of ' artistic vision.' Or it is 
 of the nature of that quality which Hazlitt defined 
 as 'gusto.' 
 
 It may not be known to all that there are still 
 extant records of evidence taken before the old 
 Church courts, and elsewhere, in Scotland, which 
 afford instances of happy expression and apparent 
 artless candour on the part of the witnesses 
 wonderful in effectiveness, if single-fold ; and if 
 otherwise, marvels of self-concealing art. In- 
 stances of this felicity of expression are to be 
 found in plenty in the old Acts of General 
 Assembly of the Scottish Church : for example, 
 when inquiry into a matter under notice was 
 postponed, they directed that it be c sisted till God 
 give further light.' Again, in most of the com- 
 plaints to the Scotch king in the sixteenth century,
 
 xxviii MRS. CALDERWOOD 
 
 of wrong and violence done on the Border, the 
 complainants begin by stating that at the time in 
 question they were f dreading harm from no man, 
 but only wishing to live in God's peace and the 
 king's ' when the outrage complained of was per- 
 petrated. Here is a picture of rural simplicity and 
 innocence as skilful and full of suggestion as a 
 sketch from the needle of Seymour Haden, which 
 these Border artists in words were very sure to 
 belie on the first opportunity. 
 
 Whether this gift of effective narrative be a part 
 of that shrewdness said to be a Scotch peculiarity 
 is a question that may be fairly discussed. 1 But 
 it is believed that in the letters and journals of 
 
 1 A notable instance of what is meant may be cited ; namely, 
 the brisk passage of arms between Major Somerville and Captain 
 Crawfurd, as narrated by that most prolix of writers, Lord 
 James Somerville Memorie of the Somervills, vol. ii. pp. 272-4. 
 The combat between the Major, with his ' half rapper-sword 
 backed, and a great kain in his left hand,' and the Captain armed 
 with ' a large broad-sword and Highland dirk,' began at the middle 
 of the Lawnmarket in Edinburgh : step by step, they fought 
 down the High Street till some way past the wooden booths of 
 the goldsmiths. The varying fortunes of the fight are told in a 
 manner so minute and graphic that, indeed, we seem to hear the 
 clash of the swords as they meet, and the click of the dagger in 
 the parries. La Rixe of Meissonier is not a more life-like picture 
 of a deadly brawl. This is all the more remarkable as probably 
 the writer was not born at the time of the occurrence.
 
 INTRODUCTORY xxix 
 
 Mrs. Calderwood there may be found abundant 
 evidence to support the theories now advanced. 
 Indeed these letters seem, in some measure, to 
 give a clue to the secret of all good narrative 
 writing ; in simplicity, earnestness, and intense 
 interest in the matter in hand, brooking no un- 
 necessary ornamentation. 
 
 Mrs. Calderwood's position as will be shown 
 was such as to give her the freedom necessary 
 for good letter-writing, while her clear-headedness, 
 genial humour, and a goodly measure of the 
 national gift combined to make her notes of travel 
 the entertaining pictures it is hoped the reader 
 may find them. 
 
 Sir James Stewart of Kirkfield and Coltness, 1 
 commonly known as Provost Stewart, was a 
 merchant and banker of Edinburgh. He was 
 accounted one of the c stiff' Presbyterians in 
 
 1 There has been much and bitter contention regarding the 
 origin of this branch of the Stewart family. Whether the 
 Stewarts of Allanton (the progenitors of Provost Stewart) were 
 descendants of Sir John Stewart of Bonkill, or only ' rentallers ' of 
 the See of Glasgow, forms the subject of the great ' Saltfoot 
 Controversy,' originally carried on in the first numbers of 
 B/ackwood's Magazine, some 64 years ago, and afterwards pub- 
 lished in book form. The question can scarcely be said to be 
 satisfactorily settled to this day.
 
 xxx MRS. CALDERWOOD 
 
 Covenanting times, but was withal an amiable 
 and tender-hearted man, with little of the c dour ' 
 fanatical Whig about him. He is described, at a 
 time when there was little of leniency on either 
 side, as having 'nothing of insolence or bloody 
 cruelty in his disposition,' and it is said he con- 
 sidered that c the Marques Argyle pursued and 
 prosecute the unfortunate Montrose with too keen 
 resentment.' c What need,' Sir James would say, 
 4 of so much butchery and dismembering ? Has 
 not heading and publickly affixing the head been 
 thought sufficient for the most atrocious State 
 crimes hitherto ? We are embroyled and have 
 taken sydes, but to insult too much over the 
 mislead is unmanly.' 
 
 When the army of the Commonwealth entered 
 Scotland, and before the battle of Dunbar was 
 fought, Provost Stewart, together with the Mar- 
 quis of Argyle and the Earl of Eglinton, held a 
 conference with Cromwell on Bruntsfield Links ; 
 and withstood stoutly his Independent and sectarian 
 arguments, opposing to them views based on 
 respect for the Church of Scotland, the Covenant, 
 Royalty, and true Reformation. So persistently 
 were these urged that Oliver mounted his horse 
 and rode off, muttering as he went threats of
 
 INTRODUCTORY xxxi 
 
 bloodshed, and words singularly prognostic of a 
 Restoration. 1 
 
 For all his moderation there came, with the 
 restored king, a hard time for Sir James and his 
 sons ; fines and imprisonments, and { forfaulting.' 
 Only the great legal skill of his third son, the 
 future Lord Advocate, extricated him from for- 
 feiture that would have involved the ruin of the 
 whole family. 
 
 Provost Stewart married, while yet young, an 
 excellent industrious lady of his own age, Anna 
 Hope, niece of Sir Thomas Hope, Lord Advocate, 
 who, even after her marriage, at her own house 
 in the Luckenbooths, carried on a successful 
 commerce in silks and velvets, as more than one 
 generation of the Hopes, her predecessors, is said 
 to have done; if the historian of The Somervills 
 and Sir Archibald Stewart are to be believed. Y- 
 
 The estimable Anna died young, leaving six 
 children ; and Sir James afterwards fixed his 
 choice on a greave matron of middle age, of ap- 
 proved virtue and piety,' Marion M'Culloch, 
 
 1 ' If ever there is a return or restoration, you Lord 
 Marquess shall smart among the first.' ' Most of this,' writes 
 Sir Arch. Stewart, ' 1 had from Major Bunting, who on this 
 conference attended Earl Eglinton.' Coltneis Coll., pp. 32-33.
 
 xxxii MRS. CALDERWOOD 
 
 widow of John Elliot, younger of Stobbs. 
 Though a person with many pettish humours, 
 she seems to have been not altogether unreason- 
 able. Sir James had f a dexterity to manage the 
 lady's temper,' gently admonishing ; and * some- 
 times with ane " Insist, Marion ! " ' the good 
 woman was all submission and acknowledgment. 1 
 To her belonged the estate of Goodtrees com- 
 monly called f Gutters ' near Edinburgh ; and, 
 according to the Scotch fashion, she was usually 
 styled ' Lady Gutters.' This pretty estate (now 
 called Moredun) ultimately passed into the posses- 
 sion of the Provost Stewart's third son, Sir James 
 Steuart, Lord Advocate. 2 
 
 During his father's lifetime James Steuart, the 
 grandfather of Mrs. Calderwood, was driven to 
 seek refuge in France. His successful defence 
 of his father had caused him to be obnoxious. 
 His sympathy more than suspected with the 
 leaders of the Pentland Rising, 3 if not substantial 
 
 1 Coltness Collections, p. 28. 
 
 2 Sir James Stewart, the Provost, died in March 1681. 'So 
 he had a numerous and honourable funeral!, and was laid in his 
 own burying-ground in Grey Friars Church-yard, and in his 
 loving wife Anna Hope's grave, and many sincere tears were 
 dropped upon his turf, at his buriall.' Coltness Collections. 
 
 ' Sir James Steuart told me his father, the Lord Advocate, 
 
 3 t
 
 INTRODUCTORY xxxiii 
 
 assistance afforded to them ; his share, whether 
 known or suspected, in the production of two of 
 the most rancorous of the many bitter tractates * 
 put out by the Presbyterians at this time, rendered 
 this step a necessity. He was absent four years ; 
 and he had not been long returned when another 
 severe cut was inflicted on the Scotch administra- 
 tion of government, apparently from the hand of 
 James Steuart : this was the appearance of another 
 virulent print, entitled Scotland's Grievances by 
 Reason of the Duke of Lauder dale's Ministry. His 
 brother's house of Coltness was searched for trace 
 of the offender and his treasons ; but he was 
 gone. 
 
 Subsequently James Steuart became an im- 
 portant agent in the efforts then being made to 
 
 corresponded with the Pentland people . . . that his father lost 
 all hope of them when he heard they wer come to Collingtoun, 
 yet he sent a letter to them by a wif that sold draff the night 
 before the engagement ; but it being a terrible snou she lost her 
 way. He sent a message to them the Cougate port was secured.' 
 WODROW'S Analecta, ii. 327. 
 
 1 Naphtali; or, the Wrestlings of the Church for the Kingdom 
 of Christ ; and Jus Populi Vindicatum ; or, the People's right 
 to defend themselves and their Covenanted Religion Vindicated, 
 books which have been said to possess great intellectual and 
 moral power, though their tendency is somewhat inadequately 
 described by Lord Macaulay.
 
 xxxiv MRS. CALDERWOOD 
 
 re-establish Protestant rule, and was concerned in 
 Argyle's rebellion to the extent of affording him 
 professional advice and assistance. 1 He is also 
 said to have been concerned in the Rye House 
 Plot. He, along with Lord Stair, was ultimately 
 charged with rebellion, in absence ; after having 
 been cited at the Pier of Leith, according to old 
 custom, Steuart was tried and condemned to exe- 
 cution, when he should be apprehended. 2 
 
 He was at this time at Utrecht, where were 
 assembled many of his fellow-countrymen similarly 
 situated with himself; amongst others, Fletcher of 
 Saltoun, Lord Cardross, Lord Stair, Lord Melville, 
 
 1 . . . ' The Earl published a manifesto, drawn up in Hol- 
 land, under the direction of the Committee, by James Steuart, a 
 Scotch advocate. ... In this paper were set forth, with a 
 strength of language sometimes approaching to scurrility, many 
 real and imaginary grievances.' MACAULAY, vol. ii. chap. 5. 
 
 2 It was upon this occasion that Sir George Mackenzie, the 
 Lord Advocate, upon sentence being passed, uttered in Court 
 the extraordinary speech : ' This family are not Stewarts ; 
 their father, Provost Stewart, was a pair-legged Macgregor, and 
 changed his name when he came to town because of the Act of 
 Parliament ; and these forfault Stewarts are all damned Mac- 
 gregors ! ' Coltness Collections t p. 80. The allusion is to ' a 
 strict Act against the clan Greigour suppressing the name.' Ch. 
 i. part I. cap. 30, revived in the following reign. See Index 
 to Scots Acts by Sir James Steuart, Her Majesty's Advocate. 
 Edin. 1707.
 
 INTRODUCTORY xxxv 
 
 Sir Patrick Hume of Polwarth, as well as his own 
 elder brother Sir Thomas Stewart, to whom Perm 
 had given the name of f Gospel Coltness,' all 
 awaiting better days. In Holland he met William 
 Penn, the Quaker, King James's diplomatic emis- 
 sary charged to persuade the Prince of Orange of 
 f the king's great sanctity in religious matters, and 
 of his unlimited charity for Christians of all deno- 
 minations.' He succeeded in convincing Penn of 
 the moderation of his views, 1 so that James, at the 
 instigation of his adviser, pardoned Steuart in the 
 hope that by his means future dealings with the 
 stiffnecked Whigs might be facilitated. Bygones 
 were accordingly forgotten, his share in Argyle's 
 rebellion was pardoned, and he was called over to 
 James's court. 
 
 Whether or not it was that James Steuart was 
 able, from the sagacity that a life of struggle 
 and adversity had taught him, to make a skilful 
 forecast of the events of the next year or two 
 in the interests of his party, it is certain that 
 before leaving Holland he managed to come to an 
 understanding with the Prince of Orange. These 
 
 1 His correspondence at this period with Flagel, the Stadt- 
 holder's Pensionary, is noticed, amongst others, by Lord Mac- 
 aulay.
 
 xxxvi MRS. CALDERWOOD 
 
 ' premature actings,' as they were termed, had, 
 however, the effect of shaking, for a time, what 
 confidence in him either party may have had, and 
 procured for him the nickname of f Jamie Wylie.' 
 
 His political career at this time was not marked 
 by that uncompromising spirit which characterised 
 the leaders of the party, and failed to give entire 
 satisfaction to either side. Still there were those 
 as Carstares and Wodrow who never doubted 
 his good faith ; the latter knew him personally, 
 and was his confidant, and familiar friend, so that 
 the easy credulity which has been charged upon 
 the historian of the Church's sufferings can with 
 less force be said to affect his opinion in this case. 
 
 Connected with the Steuart family, and especially 
 with the good old Provost and Sir James, his son, 
 at the period of their greatest suffering, are many 
 interesting details which would go far to make a 
 comprehensive biography of the Lord Advocate, 
 in which an effort might be made, in dealing with 
 the motives of the far-seeing statesman, to solve 
 one of the most complex cases of * historic doubt ' 
 of modern times. 
 
 Provost Stewart, for example, had been in- 
 trusted with the care of a young student from 
 England, the same who afterwards became Prin-
 
 INTRODUCTORY xxxvii 
 
 cipal of the Edinburgh University, and Bishop 
 of Dunblane, the gentle and lovable Robert 
 Leighton. It is touching to read how, when, 
 after his elevation to a Bishopric, he paid a 
 visit to Goodtrees, his old friend and guardian, the 
 Provost, would meet him with the familiar' 
 f Welcome, Robin.' But it is added, c though his 
 Lordship of Dumblain took easy what Sir James 
 Stewart said, he did not so easy digest what his 
 eldest son, Thomas, put closer home.' In refer- 
 ring to these home truths urged by c Gospel 
 Coltness ' the Bishop would say c I have dined at 
 Goodtrees. I wish I had stayed at home and 
 chawed gravel !' The Provost, on the other hand, 
 used to liken him to a c sanct travelling to heaven 
 sincerely but by dubious steps a prey to whims 
 and novelties ' and used to add, f The Court have 
 called up two little better than Judas, and seduced 
 one Nathanael.' l 
 
 Again, a story is told by Wodrow, with his 
 usual fascinating quaintness 3 from which it may be 
 inferred that even at the period when Steuart was 
 concealed in London, Sir George Mackenzie, the 
 
 1 ' Thus he expressed of those consecrate at London, namely. 
 Mr. James Sharp, Mr. John Fairfowl, and Mr. Robert Leighton.' 
 Sir ARCH. STEWART'S Mem., Coltness Coll. 
 
 d
 
 xxxviii MRS. CALDERWOOD 
 
 Lord Advocate, had little difficulty in finding him 
 when he wanted his assistance. Wodrow relates 
 that c a debate fell in betwixt one of our Scotch 
 Bishops about the English ceremonies and Prelacy 
 with one of the English Bishops.' The position 
 taken up by the Scottish Prelate Wodrow is not 
 sure if it was Dunblane is curious. c Our 
 Scotch Bishop,' he says, c set up a defence of 
 Scots Moderate Episcopacy without Liturgy and 
 Ceremonies.' l 
 
 Ultimately Sir George produced a man in ' a 
 very negligent mean habit ' who amazed the 
 English Bishops with his knowledge and skill in 
 debate. f Could he be gained ' they said f he 
 deserved the highest post in the Church for his 
 learning and good sense.' 2 This poor man was 
 James Steuart, the future Statesman and King's 
 Advocate. 
 
 When the Revolution of '88 was accom- 
 plished, and the re-settlement of Scotch affairs 
 of both Church and State demanded atten- 
 tion, it was found impossible to get on without 
 
 1 The striking fact has more than once been pointed out that 
 for a long period the Presbyterian Church of Scotland used 
 a Liturgy while the Episcopal Church did not. 
 
 2 Analecta, ii. p. 258.
 
 INTRODUCTORY xxxix 
 
 the assistance of Steuart. He was appointed 
 Lord Advocate in 1692, and knighted three 
 years afterwards. Unlike the majority of the 
 Whig party he * was not for the Union.' He 
 was deprived of his office after holding it some 
 sixteen years. 
 
 In Wodrow's correspondence where the matter 
 is mentioned (vol. i. p. 17), no reason is assigned 
 for this dismissal : c The Advocate is put off with- 
 out knowing anything of it ; ... he is a little 
 offended at the manner of his removal.' In the 
 Coltness Papers his resignation is spoken of, but 
 no definite reason given. 
 
 Two surmises have been adventured regarding 
 the cause of Steuart's dismissal ; first, that he was 
 not in Parliament : secondly, that the government 
 were dissatisfied with his conduct of the prosecu- 
 tion in the preceding year of certain Scotch 
 gentlemen who had rashly taken up arms in the 
 Stuart cause ; when an expedition actually sailed, 
 but had to put back to France. In the mean- 
 time three lairds of the Jacobite family of Stirling 
 namely, Keir, Garden, and Kippendavie, with 
 Seton of Touch and Edmonston of Newton, 
 had so far committed themselves that they were 
 brought to trial, but, partly from mismanage-
 
 xl MRS. CALDERWOOD 
 
 ment, as was alleged, on the part of the Lord 
 Advocate, the charge of treason was found not 
 proven. 1 
 
 Now, Sir John Dairy mple tells a curious story 
 in reference to this period which may possibly 
 supply grounds for a third surmise, though the 
 anecdote is not told in this connection by the 
 Baron of Exchequer. He writes f During the 
 intended French invasion of Scotland in the year 
 1708, the English fleet at the mouth of the Frith 
 of Forth was mistaken at Edinburgh for the 
 French. Upon that occasion Sir Hew Dalrymple, 
 Lord President of the Court of Session, who was 
 flying into England himself, advised Sir James 
 Steuart to do so too, putting him in mind that he 
 had had a hand in drawing the Prince of Orange's 
 manifesto. He answered, (< Ay, ay, my dear, 
 that is true; and I must draw this man's too." 
 f This is a story,' adds Sir John, f well known to 
 both families.' 2 
 
 Whether true or not, the effect of such an 
 anecdote in those days, if it got into circulation, 
 could hardly be exaggerated. 
 
 1 See Lives of the Lord Advocates, by Mr. G. W. T. 
 OMOND. Edin., 1883, i. 276-77. 
 
 2 Da/rympte's Memoirs. Edin. 1790. Vol. ii. p. 40.
 
 INTRODUCTORY xli 
 
 Sir James was again appointed f Advocate ' in 
 1712. 
 
 For many years Sir James Steuart enjoyed his 
 father's estate of Goodtrees. Shortly before his 
 death he purchased from his nephew, Sir David 
 Stewart, 2d Baronet, the family property of Colt- 
 ness. He was twice married; his first wife and 
 the mother of all his children, was Agnes Traill of 
 the Fifeshire family of Blebo, a family that had 
 suffered much hardship and imprisonment in 
 Covenanting times. 
 
 In 1712 the Church sustained a grievous loss 
 by the death of c this great man and extraordinary 
 Christian.' The worthy old minister of Eastwood 
 says of his last moments that they were f truly 
 wonderful,' marked by much humility and c a con- 
 vincing demonstration of the reality of religion.' 
 
 Though the Advocate on his deathbed had charged 
 his son f No pageantry, James !' there was at his 
 funeral no little display of public feeling. Fifteen 
 hundred gentlemen were invited, and by the time 
 the Magistrates in procession had wended their 
 way amidst the dense crowds by the Lawn- 
 market, the West Bow, and the Candlemaker 
 Row to the grave in Grey friars' Churchyard, 
 the corpse had not left Sir James's house at the
 
 xlii MRS. CALDERWOOD 
 
 foot of the Advocate's Close. Several lives were 
 lost on this occasion. 1 
 
 As might be expected there were two very 
 opposite opinions of Steuart's character. While 
 there were some who did not scruple to apply to 
 him the bitter sarcasm in the line, 
 
 ' Tuque colens Christum coelum nee Tartara credis,' 
 
 and to inflict many another venomous sting ; 
 others, like Wodrow, were at a loss to find words 
 to express their admiration for this the greatest 
 lawyer and the best Christian (in his station) that 
 ever they had.' 2 
 
 A very high opinion was held of the Lord 
 Advocate's son, Sir James Steuart, f Solicitor- 
 General Cultness,' and hopes were entertained of 
 the advantages his services might have been to the 
 Church had opportunity offered. He might, it 
 was thought, in part have filled his father's place 
 in the church and country. The historian of the 
 { Sufferings of the Church * paid him the compliment 
 of submitting to him the proofs of his great work. 3 
 
 1 A striking portrait of Sir James Steuart, the Lord Advo- 
 cate, by Sir John de Medina, is at Polton; and another by the 
 same artist in the Library of Writers to the Signet, Edinburgh. 
 
 2 Wodrow Correspondence. 
 
 3 ' I '11 be fond,' he writes, ' of your corrections and additions.' 
 Ibid. ii. 42-44.
 
 INTRODUCTORY xliii 
 
 Sir James, who was M.P. for Edinburgh, was 
 knighted in 1704 by the Marquis of Tweeddale, 
 the Lord High Commissioner to the Church of 
 Scotland ; one of the last of the Scotch knights 
 elevated in this manner, before the Union. He 
 was created a baronet by Queen Anne in 1705. 
 The same year he was married to the witty and 
 beautiful Anne Dalrymple, daughter of Sir Hew 
 Dalrymple, Lord President of the Court of Session. 
 Thus she was niece, and her eldest daughter 
 Margaret, Mrs. Calderwood, a grandniece of the 
 Bride of Lammermuir, that is to say, of Janet 
 Dalrymple, daughter of the first Viscount Stair, 
 the heroine of Scott's story. 1 
 
 In a letter dated c Edin., the i4th April 1735,' 
 in which Rachel Erskine details to her nephew, 
 Lord Buchan, in London much of the homely 
 cackle of the bourg, there are these items of news 
 
 1 The connection between the Steuarts and Dalrymples is shown more 
 clearly, thus : 
 
 James Dalrymple, Lord President, = Margaret Ross, of Balneil. 
 ist Viscount Stair. 
 
 I TT I 
 
 John 2d Viscount, cr. Sir Hew, J an et, 
 
 Earl of Stair ; Lord Advocate, of North Berwick, ' Bride of 
 
 and Secy, of State. Lord President. Lammermuir.' 
 
 I I74- 
 
 Anne, = Sir James Steuart, of 
 | Coltness, Sol.-General. 
 
 I ~i735- 
 
 Margaret Steuart, = Thomas Calderwood, 
 of Coltness. ofPolton.
 
 xliv MRS. CALDERWOOD 
 
 Justice Clerk died last night Miss Peggie 
 Steuart is married to Mr. Calderwood of Polton.' 1 
 This gentleman was the son of Sir William 
 Calderwood, Lord Polton, f an upright, judicious, 
 and dispassionate man/ who was elevated to the 
 bench of the Court of Session with this title in 
 1711; in which same year he had purchased the 
 estate of Polton, 2 near Edinburgh. From the end 
 of the sixteenth century downwards, the Calder- 
 woods had been a notable family in that district, 
 as is shown by several notices of them that have 
 been preserved. 
 
 Thomas Calderwood is described as being a 
 good easy-going man, somewhat indolent, and not 
 unwilling, when he had proved his wife's wonderful 
 talents for management, to intrust the care of his 
 estate entirely to her. It may be noticed that his 
 wife's journals show him to have been in some 
 respects her superior in point of attainment ; for 
 example, he seems to have been an excellent 
 linguist, never at a loss in carrying on a conversa- 
 
 1 Sir DAVID ERSKINE'S MS., formerly in possession of Charles 
 Kirkpatrick Sharpe. 
 
 2 The lands and mill of Polton belonged originally to the 
 Chapel of the Hospital of St. Leonard the Abbot, at the 
 Bridge of Lasswade ; the revenue being applied to its support 
 and the maintenance of weekly masses.
 
 INTRODUCTORY xlv 
 
 tion with the diverse persons they met, whether in 
 French or Latin ; and pleased when he found any 
 who could talk with him of books. He it was who 
 presented to the British Museum the MS. volumes 
 of the Rev. David Calderwood (author of the 
 prohibited Altar e Damascenum, 1625 ; and grand- 
 uncle of Lord Polton) which formed the substance 
 of his well-known History of the Church of Scot- 
 land. 
 
 Mrs. Calderwood's sister, the beautiful Agnes 
 Steuart of Goodtrees, married in 1739 Henry 
 David, tenth Earl of Buchan, 1 and so became the 
 mother of two very distinguished men, namely, 
 the Hon. Henry Erskine, better known in Scot- 
 land as f Harry Erskine,' Lord Advocate ; and of 
 Thomas, Lord Erskine, Lord Chancellor of Great 
 Britain. 
 
 The fact that Lady Buchan is mentioned 
 as having studied mathematics under Professor 
 Maclaurin, the friend of Newton, shows that in 
 point of education these sisters were far in advance 
 
 1 Horace Walpole writes in October 1766 of having met at 
 Bath * a Scotch Countess of Buchan carrying a pure, rosey, vulgar 
 face to heaven.' Letters, vol. v. p. 16. 
 
 ' She died in Dec. 1778, in St. Andrew Square, Edinburgh, 
 in the corner house [her son, Lord Buchan's] joining George St., 
 on the north side, aged 61 years.' Sir D. ERSKINE'S MS.
 
 xlvi MRS. CALDERWOOD 
 
 of the usual attainments of ladies of that age, when 
 * whoever had read Pope, Addison, and Swift, and 
 some ill-wrot history, was thought a learned lady ' 
 which character, adds Miss Mure of Caldwell 
 f was by no means agreable.' Her other sisters 
 were Elizabeth Steuart of Coltness (to be after- 
 wards mentioned) and Marianne, Mrs. Murray of 
 Cringletie, mother of Lord Cringletie, a judge of 
 the Court of Session. 
 
 But the only son of Solicitor-General Coltness, 
 the fourth Sir James Steuart, demands further 
 mention, as he was in great measure the cause of 
 these letters and journals being written. 
 
 Sir James, after having been taught at the school 
 of North Berwick, where he was in some degree 
 under the eye of his grandfather, the old President 
 of the Court of Session, Sir Hew Dalrymple ; 
 and at Edinburgh University ; travelled much 
 abroad. At Rome he made the friendship of 
 several gentlemen, the Duke of Ormond, Earl 
 Marischal, Lord Elcho, and others, from whom it 
 was alleged f his political principles received a 
 tincture ' to which was attributed the rashness of 
 his engagements in 1745. 
 
 Four years previous to that date he returned 
 home, and in the spring of 1741 he accompanied
 
 INTRODUCTORY xlvii 
 
 his friend Lord Elcho to Dunrobin, where Lady 
 Frances Wemyss, the eldest sister of Lord Elcho, 
 was on a visit to her aunt, the Countess of Suther- 
 land. Lady Frances, f the flower of the Wemyss 
 family,' as she is described, notwithstanding f her 
 timidity in regard to the marriage state, and the 
 observations she had made on the infelicities and 
 anxieties to which that state is frequently subject,' 
 ultimately became the wife of Sir James Steuart. 
 They were married at Dunrobin on the i4th of 
 October 1743. 
 
 In the following year Sir James was unhappily 
 engaged in a contested election for the county of 
 Edinburgh, at which it was sought to interfere 
 with that direction of affairs which the family 
 of Arniston had long exerted, c with an eminent 
 reputation.' In the end Sir James's claims, upheld 
 by himself in court, to be admitted, a free-holder 
 of Mid- Lothian, were refused. This circumstance 
 is said to have been instrumental in giving a 
 colour to his future life and feelings. 
 
 At all events, it was unfortunate that when 
 Prince Charles Edward held his court at Holy rood 
 in '45, Lady Frances lay ill of small-pox. Her 
 life was in danger, and her husband consequently 
 could not retire to his country house of Coltness
 
 xlviii MRS. CALDERWOOD 
 
 as prudence might have suggested. He was pain- 
 fully situated ; surrounded by friends and relatives 
 in sympathy with the young Prince, and his mind 
 distracted with domestic anxiety, he was induced, 
 it is said, to make concessions that he afterwards 
 regretted. In October he retired to the Continent, 
 embarking at Stonehaven, not without as was 
 alleged some show of his having been seized, 
 and forcibly put on board ship. Later he 
 reached Paris, where Lady Frances joined him as 
 soon as the state of her health would permit ; his 
 son being left at Caldwell, under the care of his 
 aunt, Mrs. Mure, 
 
 Tempting offers were made to him while in 
 France ; amongst others the command of a regi- 
 ment of the Scots Brigade, which he refused, 
 recommending Lord Airlie for the post, being 
 determined to do nothing that might tell against 
 his young son's interests. 
 
 Though Sir James's name was not included in 
 the Bill of Attainder after the Rebellion, yet it 
 was inserted in the list, issued soon after, of those 
 excluded from the benefits of the Bill of Indemnity ; 
 this he had not expected, seeing he had taken no 
 active part in the recent Rebellion. 
 
 A letter dated only c 1746,' and without signa-
 
 INTRODUCTORY xlix 
 
 ture, describes in his own words his position at 
 this time. The letter, it is believed, has not been 
 printed hitherto. 
 
 (70 HENRY DAVID, 'Tenth Earl of Euchan.'] 
 
 1746. 
 
 * MY DEAR LORD, I see some good friend or 
 other has been pleased to tack my name to a bill 
 of attainder; of this I was informed by H 
 
 B some days ago, whose letter I immediately 
 
 answered, and in it I inclosed a paper, which was 
 all I could obtain from the People, I may say, ex- 
 ported me from Stonhive 1 a Prisoner to France. 
 I have since written to my uncle to come up to 
 Paris from . . . retirement. I have seen the 
 Count D'Argentson, Minister at War, and have 
 presented to him a petition to allow me to go over 
 to London in order to Vindicate my innocence, 
 and prevent the consequences of attainder ; his 
 answer was more in compliments, of the bad ob- 
 servance of the Cartell, infractions of the Laws of 
 Nations, etc., than any reply to my request. I 
 have applied to several friends here to use their 
 interest at Court for my liberty but who knows 
 when it is granted if at all that it will come in 
 time ? The death of the Dauphiness, and the de- 
 
 1 Stonehaven.
 
 1 MRS. CALDERWOOD 
 
 parture of the King for the army, makes the 
 ministers quite inaccessible, who, when they don't 
 like to be pressed, want only an excuse to bet. 
 
 c You know how cautious a part I acted while 
 confined in Edinburgh on account of my wife's 
 illness, and that it was only to avoid suspicion 
 that I proposed to withdraw myself to Holland. 
 If a day is fixed by the act of our delivering our- 
 selves, and if I am not at liberty to do so, I should 
 think that the maxim of the civil law should avail 
 me something " Contra non potentes agendi non 
 currit prescriptio." 
 
 < I am sure there cannot be the least proof 
 against me of high treason. You know all my 
 actions while in London, and since I have been 
 abroad. I have never, I do assure you, sent one 
 scrap of paper by the common Post. That I am 
 deeply suspected I know very well, and that I 
 was looked upon as a furious Jacobite by many 
 but, good God, is that a reason to class me in a 
 bill of attainder without having some sort of evi- 
 dence of my being guilty of high treason ? If I 
 had a mind to have taken up arms, as many others 
 did, I might have done it it was not for want of 
 them. If ever I had a mind to have furnished 
 them to others, I had it in my power at a time
 
 INTRODUCTORY li 
 
 they were most wanted, before Cope's battle. 
 Inform yourself at Wilson the gunsmith, if they 
 had not many complete stands of mine in their 
 hands ; and if I did not desire him to dismount 
 them. 
 
 C I had several broad swords . . . and there 
 they are still, I suppose. I write you these cir- 
 cumstances, because they can be verified without 
 my presence, and I hope it is not, nor will not be 
 deemed high treason for any body to speak in my 
 defence ; if after all that can be said or done for 
 me, I shall be deemed a traitor to Scotland, which 
 to me sounds oddly, I hope my Creditors will 
 not be sufferers, for in my disposition to my Son, 
 I expressly burthened my estate with all my lawful 
 debts. ... If your Lordship were a looser it 
 would be a heavier load upon my spirits than my 
 own misfortunes. I thank God I have no fear of 
 Starving.' l 
 
 Hew Dalrymple, Lord Drummore, a Judge of 
 the Court of Session, writing to Mr. Mure of 
 Caldwell some little time after this, states what 
 was probably the general impression regarding 
 Sir James's case. He says : 
 
 c We all know that Sir James's parts, and his 
 
 1 Sir DAVID ERSKINE'S MS.
 
 lii MRS. CALDERWOOD 
 
 behaving contrary to the principles of his educa- 
 tion, made him more the object of vengeance than 
 many a one who actually had been in arms.' 1 
 
 It was the rule rather than the exception that 
 the ladies inclined towards the Prince's cause, no 
 matter what the family principles might be. It could 
 hardly have been otherwise where there was a scrap 
 of sentiment or romance. There is a very quaint 
 letter from Agnes, Countess of Buchan, to Lady 
 Frances Steuart, which seems to accord with this 
 theory. It was written from Edinburgh, after the 
 collapse of the rash adventure, and while the 
 young Ascanius was a houseless wanderer with a 
 price of ^30,000 on his head ; and apparently 
 about the same time as her brother's letter from 
 France. 
 
 (AGNES, COUNTESS OF BUCHAN, to her sister-in- 
 law, LADY FRANCES STEUART.) 
 
 [EDIN.], Octo. 1746. 
 
 < . . . We are to have a very gay town this 
 winter, by which you will see our sperets are 
 not much the lower by cure misfortons. On 
 Thursday first, there is to be a great assembly, in 
 honour of the king's birthday. Everybody is to 
 1 Caldzvell Papers, vol. i. pt. ii. p. 17.
 
 INTRODUCTORY liii 
 
 be there ; the loyal folks from love of the day, 
 and the Jacobets for fear of being obnoxious to 
 them, for whom they are not matches. There is 
 four generals in town and vast numbers of officers, 
 which cannot fail to put the town in a speret of 
 gayety, as they are looked upon as preferable to 
 all other gentlemen by the ladys in this place, on 
 account of their success in destroying the rebels 
 in the north. The brags of this they make at all 
 the tea-tables in town would fill a volum, tho' 
 some of there best friends think it wold be better 
 they wold hold there toung. One of the most 
 remarkable in this way is a man who was at Colt- 
 ness with Jamie Barclay, when Nelly the chamber- 
 maid was dress'd and passed for Miss Patersone. 
 He tells how prodigiously he was disapounted, 
 for that he once thought he had the therty thousand 
 rugg 1 as he tells it. 
 
 c He found in the north a young man who from 
 his looks, and the make of his person, and by his 
 speaking both the French and Italin, and English 
 toungs, convinced him it was the young Pretender : 
 " On which," says he, " I hanged him on the first 
 tree I came to : but to my great disapountment 
 afterwards, I found he was a French officer." 
 
 1 A great bargain, a stroke of luck. 
 e
 
 liv MRS. CALDERWOOD 
 
 However, his good intentions has been rewarded 
 by a higher command in the army.' 
 
 Mrs. Calderwood was not a woman likely to 
 cramp her heart, nor take half views of the men 
 and things which had convulsed the whole of 
 Scotland ; what her ideas were may be gathered 
 from her letters. She would talk yacobitism, and 
 recount prates of the Duke of Cumberland to the 
 heart's content of the most fiery of the Prince's 
 followers abroad ; but she had received in the sad 
 experience of her brother a lesson of caution she 
 was far too prudent to neglect. 
 
 The unfortunate Jacobite couple had determined 
 to live in retirement for a time at Sedan ; and 
 afterwards moved to Angouleme. Here Sir James 
 remained till 1754, making the commencement of 
 his great work on Political Economy, besides 
 completing his Vindication of Sir Isaac Newton's 
 Chronology > in French. 
 
 For their son's education they now proceeded to 
 Paris, but finding that war between France and 
 England was imminent, they were forced to move 
 once more to Flanders. 
 
 Lady Frances joined her husband at Brussels in
 
 INTRODUCTORY lv 
 
 the spring of 1756, after a short trip to Scotland 
 necessitated by the state of their affairs. They 
 now resolved to pass the summer f at the German 
 Spa/ and it was at this juncture that Mrs. Calder- 
 wood and her husband resolved to join the exiles, 
 with a view to affording them the comfort of their 
 society, while their sons might receive the benefit 
 of the Continental schools. 
 
 Three years before the date of Mrs. Calder- 
 wood's Journey her only daughter Anne, at the 
 age of nineteen, had married James Durham of 
 Largo, a gentleman of good and ancient family 
 in the county of Fife. Many letters of hers 
 remain, in the possession of her descendants. 
 These show her to have been endowed with much 
 of the sound common sense and great ' reality,' that 
 quality so thoroughly Scotch, which characterised 
 her mother. From one of these letters it appears 
 that her husband had a claim to the much dis- 
 puted title of Lord Rutherford, his grandmother 
 having been a daughter of Sir Thomas Rutherford 
 who became heir of line of Lord Rutherford 
 \_East Neuk of Fife, p. 294]. He went so 
 far as to have a statement of his descent drawn 
 up, as much for the purpose of saving the 
 dignity from falling into wrong hands, as for
 
 Ivi MRS. CALDERWOOD 
 
 any hope he had of securing it for himself. See 
 Polton MSS. 
 
 There was the same close sympathy between 
 Mrs. Calderwood and her daughter 1 that existed be- 
 tween Madame de Sevigne and hers ; and the desire 
 that the one should live into the daily experience 
 of the other, expressed in the sentence often quoted, 
 f Vous ne sauriez jamais trop me parler, sur tout ce 
 que vous touche, se sont mes veri tables inter ets.' 
 
 Thus it fell out that in the early summer of 
 1756, Mrs. Calderwood, her husband, her two 
 sons ; together with Peggy Rainy, a servant of the 
 family ; and John Rattray, their man, started from 
 Polton on the momentous journey they had under- 
 taken. 
 
 The letters began at once on their departure 
 from Scotland, and apparently ceased not till the 
 return of the party. Mrs. Calderwood also kept 
 a journal carefully, and, when in the winter of 
 1756 she found herself settled at Brussels, the 
 good idea occurred to her of writing into a con- 
 tinuous narrative the substance of the letters and 
 
 1 The portrait of Mrs. Durham of Largo, by Romney, now 
 at Polton, shows a face of exceeding brightness and intelligence, 
 and much of the Dalrymple beauty, admirably set off by a 
 large hat, and plume of ostrich feathers.
 
 INTRODUCTORY Ivii 
 
 journals made up in < Volumes/ which, as oppor- 
 tunity offered, she sent by the hands of trusty 
 messengers to Scotland, for the entertainment of 
 her friends. It is evident throughout that she 
 knew her letters would be widely circulated ; her 
 careful revision of her writings has been of the 
 greatest service in making the account of her 
 journey, and all that remains regarding her sojourn 
 in the Low Countries, eminently readable. 
 
 The arrival in London of the party was at an 
 important juncture in affairs, and Mrs. Calder- 
 wood's record of it coincides with what Horace 
 Walpole has written of the same period. The 
 first news of the unsuccess of our forces at 
 Minorca had reached England. Admiral Byng 
 was in everybody's mouth ; and people did not 
 know what to think of his conduct. It was 
 believed to be the object of the enemy's move- 
 ments to draw our ships from the Channel. 
 The number of German troops in England the 
 Jacobites affected to think threatened the people's 
 liberties rather than tended towards the protection 
 of the country. It was not till after the departure 
 of the Calderwoods that full accounts arrived of 
 the surrender, f through the negligence or treachery '
 
 Iviii MRS. CALDERWOOD 
 
 of certain persons, as it was phrased, of St. Philip's 
 by General Blakeney. The Government them- 
 selves being arraigned, to emphasise their views, 
 they thought fit to give General Blakeney a 
 peerage ; and to try, and shoot Admiral Byng. 
 For the rest, the too brief description of Vauxhall 
 and Ranelagh, and Mrs. Calderwood's general 
 impressions of them, are corroborated by Sir Gilbert 
 Elliot who, a little later, wrote to his wife that it 
 was never without a sense of fear of the con- 
 sequences that he went with a party to such places ; 
 while Walpole's admirably told story of a supper 
 party at Vauxhall, shows that a feeling of reckless 
 daring on the part of the ladies was a chief cause 
 of their enjoyment, and a terror to their escort.
 
 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S JOURNEY
 
 ' L'univers est une espece de livre, dont on n'a lu que la 
 premiere page quand on n'a vu que son pays. J'en ai feuillete 
 un assez grand nombre, que j'ai trouve egalement mauvaises. 
 Get examen ne m'a point etc infructueux. Je haissais ma patrie. 
 Toutes les impertinences des peuples divers, parmi lesquels j'ai 
 vecu, m'ont reconcilie avec elle. Quand je n'aurais tire d'autre 
 benefice de mes voyages que celui-la, je n'en regretterais ni les 
 frais ni les fatigues.' 
 
 FOUGEROT DE MoNBRON. I75O.
 
 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S JOURNEY 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Over the Border: Sunday in England: Durham 
 Cathedral : A Highwayman : Rachel, the 
 Chambermaid: Irish or Welsh: IMPRESSIONS 
 of ENGLAND: 'The Cattle : The People : Their 
 Talk : Comparisons of Land Tenure : Popu- 
 lation j Trade y and Wages: LONDON Gossip: 
 Vauxhall and Ranelagh : The Duke in Hyde 
 Park : Food and Cookery : Mr. Traill of 
 Jamaica : English Vapours. 
 
 JUNE 3d, at 4 afternoon, I set out from Poltoun ; 
 sleeped at Pilmure. 
 
 June 4th. Dined at Beltounfoord, and lay at 
 Auldcamus. 
 
 June 5th. Met there next morning with 
 Provost Alexander, and, as we had set out in 
 haste, and had not got our credit on London
 
 4 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 setled, he gave us credit on his correspondent. 
 Finding that journying 1 was too litle exercise, 
 we took post horses in our own chaise at Bel- 
 foord, being the 5th of June, and came at 
 night to Morpeth, where we met with Lady 
 Ann Erskine. 2 
 
 June 6th. We dined at Durhame, and I went 
 to see the cathedrall; it is a prodigious bulky 
 building. It was on Sunday betwixt sermons, and 
 in the piazzas there were several boys playing 
 at ball. I asked the girl that attended me, if 
 it was the custome for the boys to play at ball 
 on Sunday. 
 
 She said, ( they play on other days as well as on 
 Sundays.' 
 
 She called her mother to show me the church ; 
 and I suppose, by my questions, the woman took 
 me for a heathen, as I found she did not know of 
 any other mode of worship but her own ; so, that 
 
 1 Performing a fixed distance in the day. 
 
 2 Mrs. Calderwood's niece ; daughter of Agnes, Countess of 
 Buchan. At this time she was about seventeen years of age. 
 Lady Anne Agnes Erskine became a great light in the religious 
 world, and was the friend and executor of the Methodist Lady 
 Huntingdon. ' I consider it to be the highest illustration of my 
 name and family that she was my sister' wrote Lord Chancellor 
 Erskine. She died in 1804, aged 64.
 
 JOURNEY 5 
 
 she might not think the Bishop's chair defiled by 
 my sitting doun in it, I told her I was a Christian, 
 though the way of worship in my country differed 
 from hers. In particular, she stared when I asked 
 what the things were that they kneeled upon, as 
 they appeared to me to be so many Cheshire 
 cheeses. I asked the rents of the lands about 
 Durham, and was told by the landlord they were 
 so dear he had no farm, for they let at thirty or 
 forty shillings per aiker near that toun ; that a cow 
 was from four to six pounds sterling, and they 
 gave, the best, about eight Scots pints per day. 
 That night we lay at Northallertoun. 
 
 Next day, the 7th, we dined none, but baited 
 at different places ; and betwixt Doncaster and 
 Bautry a man rode about in an odd way, whom 
 we suspected for a highwayman. Upon his 
 coming near, John Rattry pretended to make a 
 quarle with the post-boy, and let him know, so 
 loud as to be heard by the other, that he keept 
 good powder and ball to keep such folks as him 
 in order; upon which the felow scampered off 
 cross the common. Upon our coming to Bautry, 
 we were told that a gentelman was robed there 
 some days before, by a man whose description 
 answered to the one we saw. I found in generall,
 
 6 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 before I came here, that all the grounds lett very 
 low, and that, about all the towns, the aikers were 
 about twenty-five shillings, and the farms not 
 above fifteen. 
 
 The first intelligent person I met with was 
 Rachel, the chamber-maid. Rachel could answer 
 almost every question I asked, and I suppose, by 
 that time, I had learned to conform my enquirys 
 to the knowledge of the people, being, before this, 
 always answered with f l don't know,' to the 
 simplest question I could ask, and often stared at, 
 as much as to say, * I wonder how such things 
 comes in anybody's head.' 
 
 The post-boys, who drive the same road for 
 years, hardly know a gentleman's house, or the 
 name of any place less than a vilage. Rachel 
 could tell who lived near her, what farm her 
 master keeps, and what rent he payd, and what it 
 produced : gave me a receipt for salting butter, 
 which was, to wash it well from the milk with 
 salt and water, and a little salt, then take it piece 
 by piece like the bigness of half a pound, and put 
 it in a can, spreading every piece above another 
 with a sprinkling of salt betwixt each ; but to keep 
 it from touching the sides of the can, that the salt 
 betwixt the layers throw a sort of pickle which
 
 JOURNEY 7 
 
 keeps the air from it, and so to do till the can 
 was full. 
 
 She told me likewayes how they fed their calfs : 
 those for killing they let suck ; and those for 
 rearing fed as we do ; but in that house, as they 
 had a great deal of broth in which their meat 
 is boiled, and which they did not use as we 
 do, they gave to their calfs the length of six 
 Scots pints per day, upon which they throve very 
 well. 
 
 June 8th. From Bautry we went seventy-five 
 miles, and lay at Stilton : there was a fine large inn, 
 and everything in great order, but the linen was as 
 perfit rags as ever I saw, plain linen with fifty holes 
 in each towell. The landlady gave me the receipt 
 for making Stilton cheese, (which is famous,) as 
 follows : two thirds cream, and one milk ; the 
 whey prest off, and the curd broke, and salted in 
 the curd ; great care in dressing them well, and 
 keeping them clean from moulding. 
 
 June 9th. From Stilton we dined at Hatfeild, 
 where there was a great many coaches in the court- 
 yard with company leaving London, and every 
 family had a coach full of abigalls, who held a 
 most prodigious chatering and scolding at not 
 having proper attendance given them. From
 
 8 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 Hatfeild we came to Barnet, the last stage from 
 London, where we stopped, and, whilst we changed 
 horses, I asked some questions at the maid who 
 stood at the door, which she answered, and went 
 in, for we did not come out of the chaise. In a 
 little, out comes a squinting smart-like black girl, 
 and spoke to me, as I thought, in Irish, upon 
 which I said, 
 
 f Are you a Highlander ?' 
 
 f No,' said she, f I am Welch, are not you 
 Welch?' 
 
 c No,' said I, ' but I am Scots, and the Scots 
 and Welch are near relations, and much better 
 born than the English.' 
 
 c Oh ! ' said she, f the maid said you was Welch, 
 and sent me to see you.' 
 
 She took me by the hand, and looked so kindly 
 that I suppose she thought me her relation, because 
 I was not English ; which makes me think the 
 English are a people one may perhaps esteem or 
 admire, but they do not draw the affection of 
 strangers, neither in their own country nor out 
 of it. 
 
 From Barnet we were to come to Kensingtoun 
 green, which led us a great way round, a very 
 lonly and wild road, and nothing like the repair
 
 JOURNEY 9 
 
 one would expect so near a great town. We 
 arrived at Lady Trelawny's 1 at six o'clock, 
 to the great astonishment of the family, who 
 looked as little for me as for the day of 
 judgment. 
 
 Before I say any thing of the great city, you 
 will ask me what I think of England in generall. 
 In the first place, it is easy to be seen who has 
 long been in peaceable possession, and who not ; 
 for, till you come to Newark-upon- Trent, the 
 furthest 2 ever the Scots went into England, the 
 improvements are not of old standing, nor the 
 grounds don't seem to be of great value, they use 
 them mostly for breeding of cattell and sheep. 
 In some places I saw, the wool was very fine, but 
 the sheep not very large, nor of the true English 
 
 1 Sir John Trelawny of Trelawny, County Cornwall, M.P. 
 for Liskeard, married Miss Blackwood : he died four months 
 before the Calderwoods' visit, namely, in February 1756. 
 Rebecca his sister (see post) was wife of John Butler, Esq. of 
 Morval, in the same county. 
 
 2 Swarkstone Bridge, six miles beyond Derby, on the road to 
 London, was in reality the extreme point reached by the Scots 
 Army in this invasion. No former host from Scotland had 
 penetrated further than the Tees. See Chambers's History of 
 the Rebellion, p. 62.
 
 io MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 [kind], for they had all horns, but they had the 
 bushy tail, for I observed they cut the tails off 
 them, for weight I suppose, and cleanlyness. The 
 villages to north of Trent are but indifferent, and 
 the churches very thin sown, and indeed, for a 
 long time, one would think the country of no 
 religion at all, being hardly either Christian church 
 or heathen temple to be seen. 
 
 The fields on both hands were mostly grass, and 
 the greatest variety and plenty of fine cattell, all 
 of various coulours. I observe breeders chuse to 
 please the eye, and certainly study the coulour of 
 their cattell, for I did not observe one cow or ox 
 all black or all red on the whole road, nor one 
 black sheep or lamb. It is commonly thought 
 with us that the white cattell are neither so good 
 nor so hardy as the black, but I found a great 
 number quite white, and in seven calfs there 
 would be three white. 
 
 I admired the cattel much more than the 
 people, for they seem to have the least of what we 
 call smartness of any folks I ever saw, and totally 
 void of all sort of curiosity, which perhaps some 
 may think a good quality. In our first day's 
 journey in England,, I asked the post-boy to whom 
 the lands on each hand belonged ?
 
 JOURNEY ii 
 
 He said, ( to Sir Carneby.' l 
 
 l knew who he meant, and, to try him, asked 
 s what Sir Carneby, or what other name he had ? ' 
 
 But he answered, 'just Sir Carneby, who lives 
 yonder,' and that he had never inquired the 
 sirname of the man in whose ground he was born. 
 
 As, for the inclosing in England, it is of all the 
 different methods, both good and bad, that can be 
 imagined ; and that such insufficient inclosures as 
 some are keeping in the cattell, (which is so hard 
 with us in Scotland) is intirely owing to the level- 
 ness of the grounds, so that an English cow does 
 not see another spot than where she feeds, and has 
 as little intelligence as the people ; whereas, with 
 us, there are few places which does not hang on the 
 side of a hill, by which means the cattell sees what 
 is above or below them, and so endeavours to get 
 at it. I was convinced of this, by some oxen a 
 butcher was driving to market, very large and fat. 
 They walked along betwixt the hedges very well, 
 but, no sooner were they come to a place where 
 there was only an old ditch and no hedge on the 
 
 1 Sir Carnaby Haggerston of Haggerston, Bart., County 
 Northumberland. Into his family married, in 1758, the Lady 
 Winifred Maxwell of Nithsdale, the heir of an ancient name 
 and of many romantic memories.
 
 12 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 one hand, but they scrambled over it very cleverly 
 into a feild of rye. 
 
 The horses are very good, and what they use for 
 posting are large light ones, mostly bays ; they 
 gallop away six or seven miles an hour, without 
 being much disturbed. The price of these posters 
 are ^15 or 16 a piece for the best. They use 
 few or no mares over all England for the roads in 
 draught. 
 
 I could have little conversation with the people 
 I saw, for, though they could have understood me, 
 I did not them, and never heard a more barbarous 
 language, and unlike English as any other lingo. 
 I suppose it is the custome in a publick house for 
 strangers to roar and bully, for I found, when I 
 spoke softly, they had all the appearance of being 
 deaf. 
 
 I think the cathedrall of Durham is the most 
 ridiculous piece of expence I saw, to keep up such 
 a pagentry of idle fellows in a country place, where 
 there is no body either to see or join with them, 
 for there was not place for above fifty folks besides 
 the performers. 
 
 After we past Durham the country was more 
 closs and levell. We sometimes had an extensive 
 prospect, but not the least variety, so that one
 
 JOURNEY 13 
 
 would say there was too much of it ; no opening of 
 a scene, no watter, no distinction betwixt a gentle- 
 man's seat and his tenant's house, but that he was 
 a little more smothered up with trees, so that I 
 am perswaded, if Scotland was as much inclosed, it 
 would be much prettier to look at. I do not 
 think any thing could be more beautifull than the 
 straths of some of our large rivers, inclosed on 
 every side, where the grounds hang so that each 
 inclosure might be seen above another, and, after 
 they had advanced so high and steep, then the 
 green hill appearing above, covered with sheep, and 
 the waterfalls coming doun now and then betwixt 
 the hills. They have nothing of the landscape 
 prospect, but a rich extensive woody prospect, and 
 nothing appearing above another but a Gothick 
 spire in severall touns, and that for many miles 
 from each other. We used to laugh at the folks 
 in the Highlands for counting their neighbours ten 
 and twelve miles off; but in England, they think 
 no more of thirty miles than we do of five. 
 
 Their roads are good indeed, and their horses 
 and machines light, and the miles about London 
 are, I am very sure, not above 1000 yards, 
 whereas they should be 1750 : besides the levelness 
 of the country makes travelling much quicker.
 
 H MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 They are very carefull in driving their horses, for, 
 on the smallest ashent, they go quite slow, and will 
 tell you they are going up hill. I could not learn 
 what weight their great waggons carried, none of 
 them knowing any thing about it; but, by the 
 number of horses they yoke, it must be a great 
 deal, otherways they carry at too great an expence : 
 they yoke seven and eight horses. Some have 
 four wheels and others two; these last must be 
 very exactly ballanced, not to overburthen the 
 horse, who has the weight on his back, and this 
 sort of carriage is only practicable where there is 
 no dounhill road ; for, if this carriage was put off 
 its ballance in comeing doun, it would crush the 
 horses, or, if going up, it would lift them up in 
 the air. 
 
 It is surprizing how much nonsense I have 
 heard spoken by folks who would introduce 
 English customs into Scotland, without considering 
 the difference of the two countrys : I must own 
 I saw very little new to me, but what I could 
 plainly see was calculated for the particular 
 situation of the country, and could never answer 
 for generall use. It has always been my opinion, 
 that the fault-finders are the folks who want judge- 
 ment, and not the people whose practice they
 
 JOURNEY 15 
 
 quarell, 1 for time and experience has taught every 
 part of every country to follow the method 
 most agreeable to their soil and situation, though 
 perhaps mechanicks may not have arrived to the 
 utmost perfection amongst them ; neither has that 
 generall benefit! of made roads reached them yet, 
 which in all probability will have many various 
 effects we cannot forsee. 
 
 I do not think the grounds in England are in 
 generall so rich as they have the appearance of; in 
 many places the soil is thin, within at least four 
 inches of a soft sandy stone, so open in the cutters, 
 and so loose, that the ground above it can have 
 very little moisture. Other grounds are clay, and 
 often of a white mouldering kind, in which appears 
 to be little richness, and it appears by the crops 
 that are not extraordinary, neither is the grass for 
 either hay or pasture. The tennants pay but a 
 small rent for their grounds, otherways they could 
 not live as they do upon what they produce. 
 
 There are many and various ways of letting 
 farms, but I beleive it is very seldome that one 
 farmer puts out another, by which means the land- 
 lord has it not often in his power to raise his 
 rents ; but this I had no great opportunity of 
 1 Object to.
 
 16 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 inquiring about, as the only people I saw, who 
 rented grounds, were the publick houses, who, I 
 suppose, had but short leases. 
 
 In some countys, such as in Cornwall, I find 
 they let the ground by a sort of feu, which 
 I think is not a bad way for Scotland, where 
 the grounds are in many hands, which I cannot 
 account a loss, for reasons I shall give after. 
 In Cornwall, a man of ^500 per annum, his 
 estate does not bring him in above ,200, which 
 he can count upon yearly ; but then, upon this 
 he will have perhaps a hundred tennants or feuars. 
 Each of these has a lease for three lives ; this 
 gives him the chance of three hundred people, the 
 death of every one of which brings the landlord 
 fourteen, fifteen or sixteen years' purchass of the 
 rent or feu-duty in order to have a life put in 
 in the place of the one that fell ; so that, by the 
 course of things, these people falling may, at an 
 average, bring in ^500 per annum. The large 
 farms in England are a loss, so far as they de- 
 populate the country. 
 
 The people in London, who see such crouds 
 every day, were surprised at me when I said, I did 
 not think England sufficiently peopled, nor so 
 populous by far, in proportion to its extent and
 
 JOURNEY 17 
 
 produce, as the best cultivated countys in Scot- 
 land ; and I must beleive this till I see one fact 
 that can contradict it, which I have not seen yet, 
 but many presumptions for what I assert. In the 
 first place, look from the road on each hand, and 
 you see very few houses ; touns there are, but at 
 the distance of eight or ten miles. Then, who is it 
 that lives in them ? There are no manufactories 
 carried on in them ; they live by the travellers, 
 and by the country about, that is, there are trades- 
 men of all kinds, perhaps two or three of each, 
 smiths, wrights, shoemakers, etc. ; and here is a 
 squire of a small estate in the county near by, and 
 here are Mrs. this or that, old maids, and so many 
 widow ladies, a parsonage house, a flourishing 
 house. 
 
 All the houses built of brick, and very slight, 
 and even some of timber, and two stories high, 
 make them have a greater appearance than there 
 is reality for ; for, I shall suppose you took out 
 the squire and set him in his country house, and 
 the old maids and widow ladies and place them with 
 their relations, if they have any, in the country or 
 in a greater toun, and take a stone house with a 
 thatch roof of one story high, instead of a brick one 
 of two, and there are few country villages in Scot-
 
 i8 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 land [where] I will not muster out as many 
 inhabitants as are in any of these post touns. 
 
 Then I observed there were very few folks to be 
 
 met with on the road, and many times we would 
 
 ^ 
 post an hour, which is seven miles, and not see as 
 
 many houses and people put together on the road. 
 Then, on Sunday, we travelled from eight o'clock, 
 till we came to Newcastle where the church was 
 just going in, so that I may say we travelled 
 fifteen miles to Newcastle, and the few people we 
 met going to church upon the road surprised me 
 much. The same as we went all day long ; it had 
 no appearance of the swarms of people we always 
 see in Scotland going about on Sunday, even far 
 from any considerable toun. 
 
 Then the high price of labour is an evidence of 
 the scarcity of people. I went into what we call 
 a cottage, and there was a young woman with her 
 child, sitting ; it was very clean, and laid with 
 coarse flags on the floor, but built of timber 
 stoops, and what we call cat and clay walls. She 
 took me into what she called her parlour, for the 
 magnificent name they give makes one beleive them 
 very fine till they see them ; this parlour was just 
 like to the other. I asked what her husband was ? 
 She said, a labouring man, and got his shilling per
 
 JOURNEY 19 
 
 day ; that she did nothing but took care of her 
 children, and now and then wrought a little plain 
 work. So I found, that, except it is in the 
 manufacturing countys, the women do nothing, 
 and, if there were as many men in the country as 
 one might suppose there would, a man could be 
 got for less wages than a shilling per day. 
 
 Then the high wages at London shows the 
 country cannot provide it with servants. It 
 drains the country, and none who ever goes there 
 return again, as chairmen, porters, hackney coach- 
 men or footmen ; if they come to old age, seldom 
 spend it in the country, but oftener in an alms- 
 house, and often leave no posterity. 
 
 Then the export they make of their victuall 
 is a presumption they have not inhabitants to 
 consume it in the country, for, by the common 
 calculation, there are seven millions and one half 
 in England, and the ground in the kingdom is 
 twenty-eight millions of aikers, which is four 
 aikers to each person. Take into this the im- 
 mense quantity of horses which are keept for no 
 real use all over the kingdom, and it will be 
 found, I think, that England could maintain many 
 more people than are in it. Besides, let every 
 nation pick out its own native subjects who are
 
 20 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 but in the first generation, the Irish, the Scots, the 
 French, etc., and I am afraid the native English 
 would appear much fewer than they imagine. 
 
 On the other hand, Scotland must appear to be 
 more populous for its extent and produce ; first, 
 by its bearing as many evacuations in proportion, 
 both to the plantations, 1 to the fleet and army, 
 besides the numbers who go to England; and 
 indeed breeding inhabitants to every country 
 under the sun ; and if, instead of following the 
 wrong policy of supplying their deficiency of 
 grain by importing it, they would cultivate their 
 waste lands, it would do more than maintain all 
 its inhabitants in plenty. 
 
 But one great drawback to this improvement is 
 the intaills upon our greatest familys, and that in 
 the south, and most uncultivated plains in the 
 whole kingdome, as these estates cannot grant 
 leases upon any term but the life of the landlord, 
 which is no security for a tennant to improve his 
 grounds. 
 
 But the demand for corn from England is no 
 proof that there is a generall scarcity of provi- 
 sions; for, ever since the disease amongst the black 
 cattell, there has been so much incouragement in 
 1 Colonies.
 
 JOURNEY 21 
 
 Scotland for rearing greater numbers, that there 
 is more grass ground than formerly ; and many 
 farms where grew some corn are now turned 
 intirely to sheep, as the price of them is so greatly 
 increased ; so that, what we [pay to] import in 
 corn, we draw back again in cattell. 
 
 We have no supply of people from other 
 countrys, and, if we did not produce more people 
 than England, we could never supply them and 
 serve ourselves. I had no opportunity of knowing 
 the price of provisions, but at London and upon 
 the road, where every thing has a high value 
 whatever the original price is. 
 
 The grounds about London are not dear ; 
 garden and nursery ground is ^4 the aiker. I 
 do not think the soil near London is naturaly rich, 
 and neither the corns nor grass are extraordinary. 
 I thought their crops of hay all very light, and 
 but of an indifferent quality ; they call it meadow 
 hay, but we would call it tending pretty near to 
 bogg hay. I think the most surprising [thing] is, 
 how they are supplyed with such an immense 
 number of fine horses, and how they are all 
 mantained on hard meat all the year round. 
 
 As for London, every body has either heard of
 
 22 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 or seen it. The first sight of it did not strike me 
 with anything grand or magnificent. It is not 
 situated so as to show to advantage, and, indeed, 
 I think the tile roofs have still a paltry look, and 
 so has the brick houses ; for a village it does well 
 enough, as the character of a village is clean and 
 neat ; but there is something more substantiall and 
 durable in our ideas of a great city than what 
 brick and tile can answer. 
 
 Many authors and correspondents take up much 
 time and pains to little purpose in descriptions. I 
 never could understand any body's description, 
 and I suppose no body will understand mine ; 
 neither do I intend to say any things which have 
 ever been thought worthy to be put in print, so 
 will only say London is a very large and extensive 
 city. But I had time to see very little of it, and 
 every street is so like another, that, seeing part, 
 you may easily suppose the whole. There are 
 severall openings and squares which are very 
 pretty ; but the noise in most of the houses in the 
 rooms to the street is intolerable. 
 
 You will think it very odd, that I was a fortnight 
 in London, and saw none of the royall family, but 
 I got no cloaths made till the day before I left it, 
 though I gave them to the making the day after I
 
 JOURNEY 23 
 
 came. I cannot say my curiosity was great : 
 I found, as I approached the Court and the 
 grandees, they sunk so miserably in my oppinion, 
 and came so far short of the ideas I had conceived, 
 that I was loath to lose the grand ideas I had of 
 Kings, Princes, Ministers of state, Senators, etc., 
 which I suppose I had gathered from romance in 
 my youth. We used to laugh at the English for 
 being so soon afraid when there was any danger in 
 state affairs, but now I do excuse them. For we, 
 at a distance, think the wisdom of our governours 
 will prevent all these things ; but those who know 
 and see our ministers every day see there is no 
 wisdom in them, and that they are a parcell of old, 
 ignorant, senseles bodies, who mind nothing but 
 eating and drinking, and rolling about in Hyde 
 Park, and know no more of the country, or the 
 situation of it, nor of the numbers, strength and 
 circumstances of it, than they never had been in 
 it : or how should they, when London, and twenty 
 miles round it, is the extent ever they saw of it ? 
 
 Lord Anson, he sailed round the world, there- 
 fore he must rule all navall affairs ; which is just 
 like a schoolmaster imagining himself qualified for 
 the greatest post in the law, because he understands 
 the language in which the law is wrote. It puts me
 
 24 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 always in mind of Lundin's 1 story of the gentle- 
 man who was going to be tryed for his life ; 
 
 c It 's true, you know, he is our brother-in-law, 
 but what is he worth when a man's life is in 
 danger?' 
 
 You may apply this to our ministry upon all 
 emergent occasions. The King, every body says, 
 and I do beleive it, knows more of the world, and 
 takes more concern than any of them. It is 
 reported he cryed when he read Byng's 2 account 
 of his actions, and said, 
 
 c Who can I trust ? or upon whom can I 
 depend ?' 
 
 There is no depending on news at London : 
 there was a lye coined for every day I was there, 
 and every one of them the English beleived, 
 providing it was agreeable. And the Court is no 
 better informed than the vulgar : for, providing 
 there are two lyes raised in one day, a good one in 
 the forenoon ; then the Duke of Newcastle drinks 
 Mr. Byng's health at dinner : out comes a defeat 
 
 1 Lundin of Lundin in Fife, whose facetiae and ingenious 
 contrivances were often mentioned. 
 
 2 Admiral Byng's engagement off Minorca, for ' want of 
 judgment ' in which he was tried and shot, took place on zoth 
 May 1756.
 
 JOURNEY 25 
 
 in the afternoon ; he damns Mr. Byng for a 
 scoundrell. Out goes one of the Princess's 
 masters to Kew : he tells, Mr. Byng has defeat the 
 French. The Prince of Wales hears it : then it 
 comes, Who told you, Heny Peny? At last, it 
 lands on the French dancing-master, who lays it on 
 a Hanoverian officer, whose name he knew not. 
 So the reports go abroad. 
 
 I had frequent opportunitys of seeing George 
 Scott, 1 and asked him many questions about the 
 Prince of Wales. He says he is a lad of very 
 good principles, good-natured, and extreamly 
 honest, has no heroick strain, but loves peace, and 
 has no turn for extravagance ; modest, and has no 
 
 1 George Lewis Scott was a cousin of Mrs. Calderwood's. 
 His mother, Marion Steuart of Coltness, was wife of George 
 Scott, a gentleman who held diplomatic posts at various German 
 courts. George Lewis Scott was preceptor to George in. while 
 Prince of Wales, and to his brothers (Caldwell Papers], He 
 married Sarah Robinson, the bright and clever sister of Mrs. 
 Elizabeth Montague, the author of an Essay on the Genius of 
 Shakespeare Mrs. Montague ' of Shakespearshire,' her friend 
 Walpole used to call her but the marriage turned out badly ; 
 Scott being blamed. Much regarding this couple (including 
 many of Mrs. Scott's letters, rivalling those of her sister in grace 
 of diction) is to be found in A Lady of the Last Century ; 
 selections from Mrs. Montague's letters, edited by Dr. Doran, 
 Lond. 1872.
 
 26 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 tendency to vice, and has as yet very virtuous 
 principles ; has the greatest temptation to gallant 
 with the ladies, who lay themselves out in the 
 most shamefull manner to draw him in, but to no 
 purpose. He says, if he were not what he is, they 
 would not mind him. 
 
 Prince Edward 1 is of a more amorous com- 
 plexion, but no court is payed to him, because he 
 has so little chance to be King. The King is at 
 present at Kensingtoun, the Princess at Kew. She 
 comes in every Sunday to Court. I saw them 
 pass in their coaches, but had no distinct view of 
 them : their equipages are very plain. 
 
 No body thinks of going further to air than 
 Hyde Park, which is very pretty. But nothing 
 but the greatest stupidity can suffer the same mile 
 or two of ground every day in their lives, when, at 
 the same time, it is no exercise nor air, for it is a 
 gravell road, quite smothered with trees. The 
 trees indeed are very pretty, being fine timber, and 
 fine carpet-grass, with cows and deer going in it : 
 but it is a small part of the Park in which 
 coaches are allowed to go. There are always 
 
 1 Prince Edward Augustus, Duke of York and Albany, K.G., 
 died, unmarried, at Monaco in September 1767, at the age of 
 thirty, to the great grief of the whole nation.
 
 JOURNEY 27 
 
 a great number of coaches, and all other machines, 
 except hacks, some of them very neat and light ; 
 but the beauty of them is the horses of all 
 different kinds. The Duke of Marlborough 1 had 
 a sett of peyets, 2 very prettily marked. 
 
 Any of the English folks I got acquainted with 
 I liked very well. They seem to be good-natured 
 and humane ; but still there is a sort of ignorance 
 about them with regard to the rest of the world, 
 and that their conversation runs in a very narrow 
 channell. They speak with a great relish of their 
 publick places, and say, with a sort of flutter, that 
 they shall to Vauxhall and Ranelagh, but do not 
 seem to enjoy it when there. As for Vauxhall 
 and Ranelagh, I wrote you my opinion of them 
 before. The first I think but a vulgar sort of 
 entertainment, and could not think myself in 
 genteel company, whiles I heard a man calling, 
 ' Take care of your watches and pockets.' 
 I saw the Countess of Coventry 3 at Ranelagh. 
 
 1 Charles Spencer, fifth Earl of Sunderland and second Duke 
 of Marlborough. 
 
 2 Piebald, literally magpies. 
 
 3 The Countess of Coventry nee Maria Gunning died 
 prematurely, of the effects, it was said, of an over application of 
 cosmetics. Horace Walpole's Jour., 1 8th June 1757.
 
 28 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 I think she is a pert, stinking-like 1 husy, going 
 about with her face up to the sky, that she might 
 see from under her hat, which she had pulled 
 quite over her nose that nobody might see her face. 
 She was in dishabile and very shabby drest, but was 
 painted over her very jaw-bones. I saw only 
 three English Peers, and I think you could not 
 mak a tolerable one out of them : Lord Baltimore, 2 
 Lord Edgecome and Lord Chomly. 3 Lord 
 Baltimore is sadly married, and parted from his 
 wife because she loves diversions and he loved 
 home ; but, ever since they parted, she keeps 
 home and he goes to every publick place. 
 Lord Edgecome's eldest son 4 is the greatest 
 
 1 Haughty, or supercilious. 
 
 2 Frederick, seventh Lord Baltimore, married in 1753 Lady 
 Diana Egerton, 'a. pretty daughter of the Duchess of Bridge- 
 water.' He is chiefly remarkable for the trial he stood on a 
 charge of felony, of which he was acquitted, in 1768. 
 
 3 George, third Earl of Cholmondeley, K.B., married the only 
 daughter of Sir Robert Walpole, first Earl of Orford. Horace 
 Walpole makes pointed reference to the Genoa Damask under 
 pretence of which he had borrowed great sums from various 
 people (Letters, ii. 295). He died 1770. 
 
 4 Dick Edgecumbe, who succeeded his father as second 
 Baron in 1758, was the draftsman of the famous satirical coat of 
 arms of the two gambling clubs at White's invented at Straw- 
 berry Hill in 1756. He died unmarried in 1761, when the
 
 JOURNEY 29 
 
 gamster in England. His second is a commodore 
 in Byng's fleet ; my Lord says, if his son has 
 not behaved well, he will never see his face. 
 Miss Pelham 1 was along with Lady Coventry, 
 she my Lord March 2 would run away with, had 
 it not been for the marriage bill ; 3 truly I would 
 sooner excuse him for stealing a sheep, for, of 
 all the draghling, odd-like things ever I saw, 
 she is the first. 
 
 I saw very few, either men or women, tolerably 
 handsome. There was a Miss Bishope, 4 a girl 
 of no fortune, who is reckoned a beauty, and 
 she is very well ; something of a solemn, black, 
 loomy countenance. The ladys pass and repass 
 each other with very little appearance of being 
 acquainted, and no company separates or goes 
 from those they come in with, or joins another, 
 and indeed they all seem to think there is no 
 
 Barony passed to his brother George, ' Commodore, 1 and 
 afterwards Admiral, and First Earl of Mount Edgecumbe. 
 1 Daughter of Henry Pelham, Chancellor of the Exchequer. 
 ' 2 Afterwards Duke of )ueensberry ; better known as ' old Q.' 
 3 The Bill to deal with clandestine and other irregular, 
 but especially with the infamous Fleet marriages, passed in 
 
 4 One of ' endless hoard of beauty daughters ' of Sir Cecil 
 Bishop of Parkham, Essex, spoken of so often by Walpole.
 
 30 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 great entertainment; but, however, they are 
 there, and that is enough. 
 
 The Duke uses to frequent Ranelagh, but was 
 not there that night I went. There were severall 
 Hanoverian officers very rugged-like carles, stiff- 
 backed and withered, with gray hairs tyed behind, 
 and the forelock cut short by the ear, and there 
 was a hussar attending them, a thick, fat fellow, 
 drest in furrs, and Bess's 1 great French muff upon 
 his head, not the red feather one. 
 
 I went one morning to the Park, in hopes to 
 see the Duke 2 review a troop of the Horse Guards, 
 but he was not there ; but the Guards were very 
 pretty. Sail Blackwood and Miss Buller 3 were 
 with me ; they were afraid to push near for the 
 croud, but I was resolved to get forward, so 
 pushed in. They were very surly, and one of 
 them asked me where I would be ; 
 
 f Would I have my toes trode off? ' 
 
 f Is your toes trode off?' said I. 
 
 ( No,' said he. 
 
 f Then give me your place, and I '11 take care 
 of my toes.' 
 
 1 The writer's sister, Elizabeth Steuart of Coltness. 
 
 2 H.R.H. William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, K.G., 
 Field-Marshal and Commander-in-Chief of the Forces. 
 
 3 See note, p. 9.
 
 JOURNEY 31 
 
 < But they are going to fire,' said he. 
 
 Then it 's time for you to march off,' said 
 I ; f for I can stand fire. I wish your troops may 
 do as well.' 
 
 On which he sneaked off, and gave me his 
 place. Some of them were very civill ; but, what 
 was of a peice with many other things, these 
 Horse Guards are closs in London, seen every 
 day by every body, are reviewed almost every 
 morning in the Park, where I suppose the same 
 folks sometimes come to see them, yet none [of] 
 all near where I stood could tell me the name of 
 one officer : that I insist upon is peculiar to the 
 English. 
 
 I paid some visits, and went to see Greenwich 
 Hospitall, which is a ridiculous fine thing. The 
 view is very pretty, which you see just as well 
 in a rary-show glass. No wonder the English are 
 transported with a place they can see about them 
 in. The only fine houses I went to see more were 
 the King's at Kensingtoun, and the Jew's I wrote 
 you of. 
 
 The palace looks better within than without, 
 and there is some very fine marbles, pictures and 
 mirrors in it. But I could not see the private 
 appartment of the old goodman, which they say is
 
 32 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 a great curiosity. There [are] a small bed with 
 silk curtains, two sattin quilts and no blanket, a 
 hair matress; a plain wicker basket stands on 
 a table, with a silk night-gown and night-cap in 
 it ; a candle with an extinguisher ; some billets of 
 wood on each side of the fire. He goes to bed 
 alone, rises, lights his fire and mends it himself, and 
 nobody knows when he rises, which is very early, 
 and is up severall hours before he calls any body. 
 He dines in a small room adjoining, in which there 
 is nothing but very common things. He some- 
 times, they say, sups with his daughters and their 
 company, and is very merry and sings French 
 songs, but at present he is in very low spirits. 
 
 Now, this appearance of the King's manner of 
 living would not diminish my idea of a King. It 
 rather looks as if he applyed to business, and knew 
 these hours were the only ones he could give up to 
 it, without having the appearance of a recluse, and 
 that he submitted to the pagentry rather than 
 made it his only bussiness. 
 
 As for their victualls they make such a work 
 about, I cannot enter into the taste of [them], or 
 rather, I think they have no taste to enter into. 
 The meat is juicy enough, but has so little taste, 
 that, if [you] shut your eyes, you will not know
 
 JOURNEY 33 
 
 by either taste or smell what you are eating. The 
 lamb and veall look as if it had been blanched in 
 water. The smell of dinner will never intimate that 
 it is on the table. No such effluvia as beef and cab- 
 badge was ever found at London. I never used to be 
 fond of bacon or salt things, and did not reflect upon 
 it, till after that I ate of them whenever I could, 
 as it was without thinking but that it was better 
 than it used to be, till I considered and found that it 
 had been from its having more taste that made me 
 have a naturall desire for it. I am not surprised the 
 English run into the French cookry, or speak with 
 so much pleasure of rashers of bacon or of roasted 
 beef, for their beef and bacon are their best meat. 
 
 The fish, I think, have the same fault. They 
 are keeped in fresh water till they are quite 
 tasteless. As for the salmond, I did not meddle 
 with it, for it cut like cheese. Their turbet is very 
 small by ours, but I do not think it preferable 
 when ours is as long keept as theirs. Their soil is 
 much smaller, and not so much meat on them; 
 they are like the least ever you saw ; were it not 
 that they are long and narrow, I should think them 
 common flounders. Their lobsters come from 
 Norway or Scotland ; they are sold for four and 
 five pence, the small ones.
 
 34 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 At London, garden things of all kinds are very 
 good, but they do not understand the right culter 
 of strawberries, nor are they at pains to propagate 
 many of them ; they pull them all with the husk, 
 but it was very few I saw before I left the place. 
 
 The night before I left London I sleeped at Mr. 
 Traill's, 1 as his house saved us all the toun going 
 through in our journey. His wife was staying 
 with Lady Trelawny all the time I was at 
 Kensingtoun ; she is a very good woman, and, 
 indeed, I may say they are one of the best and 
 most obliging couples ever I saw. She has been 
 very unlucky in her family, and he has had as good 
 luck in meeting with her : she was left a widow 
 with one son, the only remaining child of twenty- 
 two; she had severalls born before the time. 
 Her husband was an appothecary, and she carried 
 on the business after his death for five years. 
 During this time, Mr. Traill, who had made a 
 good deall of money in Jamaica, intending to come 
 home, put all his effects, wife and children, in one 
 ship, and he followed in another. The ship in 
 which his all was, with wife and children, was cast 
 away, and home came he not worth a farthing, 
 
 1 Probably a relative of Agnes Traill's, the wife of Sir James 
 Steuart, Lord Advocate.
 
 JOURNEY 35 
 
 after labouring the best part of his life. Some how 
 or other, he was recommended to this widow to 
 go in partner, and to carry on her business ; and, 
 after two years' acquaintance, they married, and 
 live in a very handsome manner. 
 
 His acquaintance with Jamaica made most of the 
 folks there be recommended to him when they 
 came to London, and severall of their children 
 entrusted to their care, when sent over for 
 education. Of this number was a young man, 
 whom she has brought up from a child, and loves 
 as her son ; and a young girl of ; 12,000 fortune, 
 with whom her only remaining son fell in love. 
 When the girl was but fourteen her mother came 
 over for her ; nobody regarded the lad's affection 
 for her, or her's for him, till they came to part, 
 and then he told his mother he would follow her. 
 The poor woman stood out against [it] all she 
 could, as it was losing him for ever, as he must 
 settle in that country ; upon which he drooped and 
 turned quite melancholy. The girl's mother found 
 her daughter as fond of him, and offered Mrs. 
 Traill, if she would let him go, she would regard 
 him as her son, and marry him to her daughter in 
 two years, so that she was forced to agree to it. 
 Over he went, was married at the two years' end,
 
 3 6 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S JOURNEY 
 
 and lived but seven months after. It is little more 
 than a twelvemonth since he died ; since which she 
 has been very ill, is still low-spirited, but bore 
 such a stroke with great resignation. 
 
 When she is in any good spirits she is very 
 entertaining. She is a little, well lookt, neat 
 body, and far from being conceited ; but her low 
 spirits take often the turn of making her imagine 
 she has a very bad appearance, and looks very odd- 
 like. This makes her very shy to appear to 
 strangers, and she told me, she thinks 
 
 f Bless me, I wonder such an one comes abroad, 
 I am not so odd-like as her.' 
 
 ( Yet sometimes ' (says she) c I dress my-self 
 well, and go out well enough pleased with my- 
 self; then in a little I think, bless me ! I am set 
 here, just like a monkey, and if any looks to me, I 
 think they say to themselves, what an odd monkey- 
 like creature is that ? and if two or three look at me, 
 I turn afraid, and am just ready to run away.' 
 
 There are few or none of the English who are 
 not troubled with low spirits and vapours, of 
 which they speak very freely ; they will tell you 
 they are quite over-run with the hip, or that they 
 are quite c hipacondryick ' ; that is the name they 
 give to low spirits or nervous.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 On the Road for Harwich : Cattle Plague, Fish 
 Ponds , and Swine: Visit to Provost Stewart 
 at Mitcham: Colchester: The Harwich Packets: 
 The Calderwoods embark: Fellow Passengers: 
 Dr. Monro : Peter Dondie : The Opera Dancer : 
 King's Messengers : Misery at Sea : HEL- 
 VOETSLUYS: A disputed landing: Helvoet to 
 ROTTERDAM : Life at the Swyn's Hooft : Dutch 
 currency. 
 
 WE set out from Mr. TrailPs on Friday the 
 25th of June, for Harwich, all through the county 
 of Essex ; we past through Stratfoord, Rumfoord, 
 Brantwood and Ingerston, where we dined. There 
 we got a mighty chatty inteligent landlady ; she 
 told me the most of the busness in that country 
 was feeding calfs for the London market. They 
 let them suck (she had three, sucking two cows) 
 till they are two months or ten weeks old, then 
 people come about whose busness it is to buy them 
 up, and they have a long-bodied waggon, divided
 
 38 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 in places, where a calf stands on its feet cross the 
 waggon ; some waggons hold six or seven, and 
 they pay the feeders about fifty shillings a-head for 
 them. I found the cows did not give much more 
 milk there than in other places, and as for the 
 price, it can be no rule, as it is according as they 
 have had the disease, as in that country it has been 
 the most fatall. A cow that has recovered will 
 give to. There is no remedy like to be found 
 out for it, neither is there any fixt symptom, but 
 all take it almost in different ways, but all have 
 a terrible running at nose and eyes, with such a 
 smell that is intolerable. They are not allowed to 
 open them, but to bury skin and all. 
 
 Nowhere in England they milk their cows more 
 than twice a-day ; all down Essex they feed calfs, 
 so some are carried seventy-two miles to market. 
 
 She showed me her fish ponds, which were three 
 in number ; the first was a breeding pond, it was 
 made with no great nicety ; it shelved in from all 
 sides, and very little fresh water was let into it, 
 and it was full of weeds and dirty ; the other two 
 they called feeding ponds ; these two had a com- 
 munication betwixt them, cross a walk of about 
 twelve foot broad, and about eight foot over. This 
 place was open above, and covered only with a lid
 
 JOURNEY 39 
 
 made of timber spoked, which opened to every hand 
 like a chest. It likeways had a spoked bottom 
 which lifted up and let doun with a pully ; the use 
 of this was that they drew the pond, and took out 
 the best of the carp, and put them into this place 
 betwixt the ponds, which was fenced on each side 
 with wicker or spokes, so that the water from 
 both ponds got in, but the fish could not get out. 
 So when they wanted to take any of them, they 
 lifted up this bottom with the pully, which came 
 up like a brander, 1 and all the fish on it, so took 
 what they wanted, and let it down again. They 
 give their carp no meat, except sometimes a few 
 grains, or that we call draff- with pardon. The 
 ponds were very weedy and thick ; they clean 
 them every year, and I imagine the reason the 
 fish do not thrive with us in Scotland is, we supply 
 our ponds too plentifully with fresh water. 
 
 This woman keept a great many swine, which 
 fed with the sheep ; she had them ringed with a 
 broad bit of iron, about a quarter of an inch broad, 
 and put in like a ring in each of their nosetrills, as 
 closs as a lady's ear-ring is in her ear, and some 
 had one in the grissel betwixt the nosetrills. She 
 told me they made very fat just on the grass ; she 
 
 1 Gridiron.
 
 40 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 complained heavily of the dear rents, twenty-five 
 shillings per aiker, inclosed ground, and wished it 
 were uninclosed that they might have it cheaper. 
 
 But this puts me in mind, that I should have told 
 you before I left London, Lady Trilawny and I 
 paid a visit to Provost Stewart, 1 at a place called 
 Mitchem, about eight miles from London, on the 
 other side of the river, which we passed at Fulham 
 Bridge, which is a large bridge made of timber, 
 and pays a very high toll ; a chaise and pair pays 
 a shilling both going and coming. We had a 
 good part of the road pretty wild, what they call 
 downs and we call moor. The road, as all are 
 near London, was very solitary ; however, we 
 passed severall little villages, and came to that 
 where Mr. Stewart was, where there is a little 
 running water, very clear and pretty, led by canalls 
 through the court and garden. Mr. Stewart has 
 taken a long lease of this place, and has a very 
 pretty large house, with a great deall of garden 
 
 1 Archibald Stewart, only son of Sir Robert Stewart of Allan- 
 bank, Bart., was Lord Provost of Edinburgh when Prince 
 Charles Edward's army occupied the city in 1 745 ; for his 
 alleged partisanship with them he was tried, but acquitted, in 
 October 1747. The records of the trial are very voluminous. 
 The male line having failed, this family is now represented by 
 Sir John Marjoribanks of Lees, Bart.
 
 JOURNEY 41 
 
 ground, and other grounds from another landlord, 
 inclosed for thirteen shillings per aiker. He has 
 the house, with every sort of office houses and 
 pidgeon house, fine fruit walls and gardens, made 
 at a great expence, with twenty-four aikers of 
 ground, for ,69 per annum, the house very neatly 
 finished, the hall laid with marble, a mahogany 
 stair-case, a cold bath, all which I thought very 
 cheap, within an hour and a half of London, for we 
 must not count by miles there. Archy was not at 
 home, but Madam was, and we were very genteelly 
 entertained, with an air of frugality rather than ex- 
 pence ; and there we had a full desertation upon the 
 politicks, and more intelligence than I had heard 
 from my being in London, but as it may all be 
 stale by the time it reach you, I shall omit it. 
 
 So, to return from whence I left my story, we 
 slept that night at Witham ; we set out early for 
 fear of being too late for the paquet, and break- 
 fasted at Colchester. We were attended at break- 
 fast by a drawer, whom I questioned according to 
 custom about the town and the country, and from 
 whom I received much more satisfaction than 
 common, upon which I was going to declare him 
 the smartest Englishman I had seen, when, un-
 
 42 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 fortunatly for England, he turned out to be a 
 Frenchman transplanted young. 
 
 From this we took post, being too late, and 
 came to Manningtree, where, for the satisfaction of 
 my Lady Buchan, 1 I must not omitt that I drank 
 the best cyder ever I tasted, and it was directly the 
 same taste as what she made at Goodtrees. Hers 
 was 2 so much of the taste of the apple, that I did 
 not beleive it was the true cyder till I tasted this. 
 We past by the fine seat of Squire Rigby, which 
 Miss Rigby used to speak so much of, but though 
 it be just on the banks of the Stour, which there is 
 a very fine river, yet it is so situated, what with 
 the planting, and the ground rising a little betwixt 3 
 and the river, that it has not a sight of it. 
 
 1 Agnes Steuart of Goodtrees, the writer's sister, wife of 
 Henry David, tenth Earl of Buchan, and mother of David, 
 eleventh Earl ; the Honourable Henry Erskine, Lord Advocate ; 
 and Thomas, Lord Chancellor Erskine. 
 
 2 It is a well-established fact that many expressions that are 
 now considered to be Americanisms are, in reality, only relics 
 of speech that has become obsolete in the old country, but has 
 been better preserved in the new. In a quaint New England 
 story recently published, entitled Cape Cod Folks, more than 
 once such phrases as this occur : ' By doing pretty much they 
 was a mind to ; ' this may be compared with Mrs. Calderwood's 
 expressions in the text. 
 
 This is a common Scots idiom and legal formula. Compare
 
 JOURNEY 43 
 
 We arrived at Harwich in time enough, but 
 found the wind was not fair for sailing, but as the 
 paquet is obliged to saill so soon as the maill 
 arrives, the captain would not tell us whether he 
 would saill or not, till nine o'clock at night, and then 
 let us know we might go to bed, which I was very 
 happy at, as we had been very early up that morning. 
 
 Harwich is a pretty large town, but nobody but 
 seafaring men lives in it, and most of its busness is 
 the passage. There are four paquets belongs to 
 it in time of peace ; and, in time of war, they call 
 the paquets from Dover, as it is not so safe from 
 privateers as Harwich. The commanders of the 
 paquets are named by the Government, and the 
 ships are theirs ; they are very small, not being a 
 third longer than a Kinghorn boat, but much 
 deeper, and somewhat broader, for they have two 
 very neat cabins with eight beds in each of them, 
 and in the first, or rather off it, is a small state- 
 room with a bed. 
 
 It is surprising the constant intercourse of 
 passengers alone (for they carry no goods) there is 
 betwixt England and Holland, for each of these 
 
 with this the phrase made use of at the attempted introduction 
 into the Scottish Church of Archbishop Laud's Service Book, 
 and often called in question ' betwixt and Pasch/ i.e. Easter.
 
 44 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 paquets makes twelve hundred pounds per annum 
 to the captain, who imposes sadly on the passengers. 
 I suppose it raises as much to the publick, for we 
 paid twelve shillings for our passage, and a shilling 
 to the clerk ; this should be for our passage, but 
 then the captain has the cabin bedded at his 
 expence, and, if you take a bed, you pay a guinea, 
 and if not, the half: this makes the captain be 
 sure to keep you a night on sea, though, if the 
 wind be good, it may be made in twelve hours ; 
 you take provisions on board, or can have it from 
 the steuart of the ship. 
 
 The river at Harwich is but like half a mile 
 broad. There is no harbour built, but they have 
 two old men-of-war, one of seventy, and another 
 of forty guns, the one runs out like a peer, the 
 other turns like a head; they are firm to the 
 ground, and make a very good harbour. You 
 may propose this method to the Laird of Lundin ; 
 it will save so much time and labour, but I do not 
 know the price of an old man-of-war, for these 
 were given by the Government, so I do not know 
 if it would save money. There was a seventy gun 
 ship building in the dock-yard ; it was as high to 
 the top from the ground as a house of three 
 stories, and a prodigious length.
 
 JOURNEY 45 
 
 This county of Essex, which reaches all the way 
 to Harwich, is a very rich country, and more 
 pleasing to the eye, as it has severall rising grounds 
 in it, and towns and houses set up to view, as it 
 were. Its produce is mostly wheat, barly, and 
 beans, and rapeseed, which they change alternatly 
 with fallow. This looks to be a very rich, 
 plentifull country, and is reckoned one of the best 
 in England. Its whole produce goes to the 
 London market ; and I do not think it is so 
 populous as I would expect. If you see one 
 English town or village you see them all ; they 
 are very neat and pleasant. The inns in all this 
 country are built (round a court-yard) of timber, 
 and open galleries from whence most of the rooms 
 enter. 
 
 On Sunday the 2jth of June we went on board 
 the paquet about eleven o'clock forenoon. We 
 were in an inn which is not so much frequented as 
 another, so that we did not know of any passengers 
 but two young gentlemen I saw walking about, 
 and one who lodged in our inn, come from New 
 England ; but we were no sooner on board but we 
 found ourselves a very numerous company. 
 
 As I have now got all their names, I may call
 
 46 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 them by name, which I could not do whilst on 
 ship-board, nor for many days after : In the first 
 place, there was an old lady with her son and 
 daughter, the lady's name was Mrs. Clark, her son 
 was Peter Dondie, bred a corn factor ; Miss 
 Dondie was a girl about eighteen, not ill-lookt, 
 quite a cockney, she has exactly the voice of the 
 stage, and might be made a player, had she as 
 much sense or feeling as to enter into the spirit of 
 her part. 
 
 Peter you have often seen acted by Stamper; 1 
 he seemed to understand a horse-race or a cock- 
 match much better than the price of corn ; he is 
 just the figure of a young squire who would be 
 married to a cast-mistress, if some good-natured 
 person in the drama did not prevent it, for which 
 he would express his thankfulness with many grins 
 and smiles, severall bows and scrapes, shrugs, and 
 rubbing of his hands for gladness. 
 
 The old woman is a good-natured body, and 
 seems to desire nothing so much that she would 
 run the risque of giving offence to obtain it. She 
 told me that she had severall troubles in her life ; 
 
 1 Stamper was one of Mr. Digge's and Mrs. Ward's company 
 at the theatre in the Canongate in 1753-56, and is described as 
 ' an actor of merit.' ARNOT'S History of Edinburgh, p. 369.
 
 JOURNEY 47 
 
 her first husband was a Frenchman, he died when 
 the lassie was at nurse, and left her with Peter, 
 another daughter and her. The other daughter 
 was most charmingly married, but died a few 
 months after, of the small-pox : that she had 
 married, for a second time, a coall-merchant of 
 the name of Clark. She did not know whether he 
 was Scots or not. She supposed he was of no great 
 family, or she would have heard enough of it, but 
 indeed he was so unhappy, (which signifies ill- 
 nature in Scots,) that she durst never ask anything 
 at him he was not pleased to tell her. 
 
 Now do not suppose I got all this on board a 
 ship, for you will see, by the course of our travells, 
 I have met her often again. 
 
 The next in rank of our company were two 
 young gentlemen, the one, Mr. Webb, setting out 
 for the tour of Italy, and his companion, one Mr. 
 Bowlls, the son of a very rich father, who keeps 
 a crown-glass warehouse near London. He had 
 allowance from his father to accompany Mr. Webb 
 (who had been a Cambridge companion) the tour 
 of Flanders, and was to return by Dover in a few 
 weeks. 
 
 Then we had one Mr. Cookson, a merchant 
 of Leeds, a very good descreet man, going abroad
 
 4 8 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 to settle his correspondence before the war break 
 out ; a Presbiterian minister going to Utrecht to 
 supply the place of Mr. Brown, 1 who has got the 
 Church-history in St. Andrews ; a very fine 
 body they call M'Culloch ; two messengers, one 
 returning to Pettersburgh from London, he is an 
 officer in the service, as the Russian Court has no 
 people of that kind or office as we have ; this 
 gentleman, in his way to London from Harwich, 
 where he had never been before, met with a 
 company of Germans, so, for the sake of coming 
 with them, he left the English passengers, and 
 joined the Germans, who made him pay the whole 
 expence of the company, which was ^7, and told 
 him England was a very dear place. He was one 
 of the merriest finest bodies ever I saw, and sung 
 vastly fine. 
 
 The other messenger was a very smart lad ; he 
 was going to Berlin, and from that to Petersburgh, 
 and the two were to set out together a journey of 
 twenty-two days, night and day travelling, and was 
 not to have off their clothes till they arrived. He 
 was sent to Lisbon with the account of the present 
 
 1 The Revd. William Brown, Professor of Divinity and 
 Church History in St. Mary's College, St. Andrews see 
 University Calendar, where the date 1757 is given.
 
 JOURNEY 49 
 
 from the Parliament, 1 and was there at the second 
 great earthquake. 
 
 We had likeways a Doctor Monro going to 
 study at Leyden, but he had as much knowledge 
 already as would do all his busness, which he had 
 bought for forty shillings ; this was a cure for the 
 jaundice. He had likeways in his pocket a bottle 
 of drops infallible for preventing sea sickness, 
 which was no other than the spirit of lavender ; 
 but if his other specifick be no better than that, 
 he is forty shillings out of pocket. However, 
 every body swallowed of it greedily, but, alais ! it 
 proved of no effect. 
 
 Marinasa the opera dancer was in the company, 
 and a companion of his, a Swiss, who was either a 
 singer or a dancer, we could not know which, for 
 he sung very ill, and did not look as if he could 
 dance. This poor Italian applyed to the doctor 
 
 1 The great earthquake of Lisbon occurred on the ist Nov. 
 1755, and was felt more or less during the following seventeen 
 days. 
 
 In answer to a message to Parliament sent by the King on the 
 28th Nov. a sum of ^100,000 was voted to enable his Majesty 
 to afford speedy and effectual relief to the inhabitants, and his 
 own subjects in that country. On 5th Dec. H.M.S. 'Hampton 
 Court,' 70 guns, was despatched for Lisbon with ' ^50,000 in 
 specie, and as much provision of beef, flour, biscuit, etc. as she 
 could carry.' Scots Magazine, Nov. and Dec. 1755. 
 
 D
 
 50 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 for a few of his drops, which after taking, he fell 
 sick, took his bed, and did not get up again till he 
 was within smell of land ; we all thought he would 
 have died outright. All the company were sick, 
 less or more, for first we plyed doun the river with 
 a cross wind, tacking every half hour till the tide 
 was spent, and about three o'clock afternoon, when 
 we were of Orford, on the coast of Suffolk, we 
 were obliged to cast anchor ; which was no sooner 
 done than every one fell a wameling * as the ship 
 did, and there was such sighing and groaning in 
 the two cabins, as I never heard the like. 
 
 Mr. Calderwood had got possession of the state- 
 room, and there lay he snug with the door shut, very 
 squeamish. There was such a stink below, that I 
 durst not go down, so sat above till it was almost 
 dark ; then down I must go, and into bed as soon 
 as possible, very very squeamish. I could not 
 keep my feet in the cabin. And it was such an 
 opperation betwixt John 2 and me, to get off some 
 of my clothes, and to get on my night clothes, that 
 had anybody been inclined to laugh, they might 
 have had a good subject. I at last got to bed, 
 but such a night I think I never will forget. 
 
 1 Rolling about. - John Rattray, their servant.
 
 JOURNEY 51 
 
 At the upper end of the cabin, a bed lyes across 
 the stern, in that lay the Swiss dished up like a 
 boiled salmond, (for it has no cover over it,) sick 
 to death ; on the right hand of it lay the almost 
 expiring dancer ; on the left lay the old lady ; at 
 her feet was Miss making a deplorable lamentation ; 
 at her feet lay I as quietly as I could ; on the side 
 with the dancer lay Mr. Webb ; John Rattray 
 was laid before my bed, with his head on a clog- 
 bag 1 and his feet into the state-room. 
 
 About twelve we all composed ourselves to sleep, 
 but were very soon awaked by a most dreadfull 
 storm of thunder, and lightning and rain. When 
 I waked, I heard Miss calling out, 
 
 f Oh, good La, is there any danger ?' 
 
 Mr. Webb sitting up in his bed, with a night- 
 cap and red vest, demonstrating to Miss that the 
 thunder would not drown her. Bowles, who had 
 come from the other cabin to pay us a visit, was 
 speldring 2 with legs and arms to keep his ballance, 
 and holding by the walls, protesting he had never 
 seen such a night ; the poor dancer crying out his 
 prayer, and sick by turns. I had sleeped so sound 
 I had forgot where I was, when all this presented 
 itself, and you may figure how astonished I was. 
 
 1 Cloak-bag, portmanteau. 2 Spreading himself.
 
 52 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 The thunder continued for three hours ; how- 
 ever, it had the effect to change the wind, so that 
 we set saill again with a fair wind, about four 
 o'clock in the morning. 
 
 The minister, poor body, got up about nine, 
 and made a large pot of coffee, which he came 
 round with, declaring it to be the finest thing to 
 settle the stomachs of the whole company ; but it 
 was ordained in this voiage, that every thing which 
 was intended for a remedy proved quite contrary, 
 for no sooner was the coffee swallowed, but every 
 one fell sick, and I, who had withstood everything, 
 at last yeilded to the minister's coffee, and made a 
 clean stomach. 
 
 My remedy came next, for about dinner time, 
 I caused John make some mutton broath ; by the 
 time it was ready, we were coming within sight of 
 land, so that it had a great effect on the company 
 as it is a good remedy comes in the end of a 
 disease. Every one praised the broath, and 
 wondered I could be so wise as to think of making 
 broath ; little did they know that I thought I had 
 not got a dinner since I left home for want of 
 broath. 
 
 The sight of land cheared every body's spirits, 
 and even the poor dancer creept out of bed like a
 
 JOURNEY 53 
 
 poisoned rottan ; l he returned thanks to the 
 company for their concern for him, but, indeed, it 
 was only comiseration he had received from any of 
 them but us. Every one said, the poor Italian is 
 [ill], but nobody offered him any assistance but 
 the minister, who gave him of his coffee, and we 
 gave him part of any thing we had. I sent him 
 some peppermint water, and he reached out his 
 bare neck, and head without a night-cap, and 
 cryed, 
 
 ' Me thank ye, Madam.' 
 
 John gave him broath, and took great care of 
 him, at which he was so thankfull that he gave 
 John half a croun. 
 
 We came in sight of land about four o'clock 
 afternoon, and arrived in sight of the harbour of 
 Helveotsluce at eight : I say in sight, for there it 
 seems it is the custome to cast anchor, that there 
 may be money given for a boat to take you in, 
 though the ship can go as easily as any other part 
 of the voiage. The sea run pretty rough ; the 
 captain went into his boat, and all who were very 
 impatient got in with him, but those who thought 
 the sea rough demurred a little, of which number 
 were the ladies, some of the gentlemen, and the
 
 54 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 Italian, and the Swiss, and two poor servant lasses 
 I forgot to mention. We waited some time, and 
 no appearance of the boat's return, and though it 
 had, they that had gone into it made so bad a 
 figure on the water, that we did not choose to 
 follow them. 
 
 Whilst we were considering what would be done, 
 up comes a Dutch boat, a great odd-like thing, by 
 all the world just like a great parton ;* for, instead 
 of being hollow in the midst, it rose up round like 
 the back of a parton, and had two boards fixed to 
 the sides, not unlike the toes. There was two 
 men in it, who asked a shilling per head from 
 us ; they could speak no English, we no Dutch ; 
 but you must take this alongst with you, that 
 in money matters, the Dutch understands any 
 language. The poor lasses say to me, 
 
 f But what will become of us, for we have not 
 a shilling to pay ?' 
 
 ' Go in boldly,' says I, f we will not pay till 
 we land, and then what can they do ? If they 
 threaten to drown you, the company will pay two 
 shillings to save you.' 
 
 So in we all went, and after we entered the 
 harbour, they demanded the money ; every one 
 1 Crab.
 
 JOURNEY 55 
 
 payed their shilling ; when it came to the Swiss, he 
 gave a guinea to change, and expected nineteen 
 shillings back, which paid for him and the dancer, 
 but they offered him but seventeen, withholding the 
 other two for the poor lasses ; upon which insued 
 a scolding bout betwixt the Swiss and the skipper, 
 each in their own language. The company inter- 
 posed in every language they could speak, to try 
 if any party could understand them, but to no 
 purpose, and this was certainly the most lively 
 representation of the Confusion of Babell ever I 
 had been witness to. 
 
 The two poor lasses were pointed at by both, 
 and were terrified out of their wits ; all that I could 
 understand of the whole dialogue was, f G d d n 
 ye,' which was thrown out by both sides; which, 
 to the honour of the English, has become part, and 
 I think the only part, of the universall language so 
 much wished for. 
 
 This dispute was at last determined in favour of 
 the Swiss, who got back his guinea, and somebody 
 gave him two shillings to pay for him and his 
 companion. 
 
 We got on shore, and came to an English 
 house, we had been recommended to, where we, 
 Mr. Cookson, and the minister, put up ; all the
 
 56 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 rest went to another. We got very good enter- 
 tainment in a low parlour, very neat and clean set 
 forth, with many pictures and much china. When 
 we came to go up stairs to bed, there was a trap, 
 which is the Dutch name for a stair, and, indeed, 
 it answers all the idea anybody can have of a trap, 
 for there was not two foot of difference betwixt the 
 head and the foot of it, though it went straight up 
 before you. The maid spoke English : 
 
 * Bless me,' said I, f such a stair !' 
 
 c Madam,' said she, f this is one of the best 
 stairs in all Holland ; ' which I found to be true. 
 
 The next question was, in what manner we 
 should go to Rotterdam. The parson had been 
 instructed to go by water ; there is no track-scoot 
 goes from Helveot, but they go to the Brille in a 
 waggon, which is but two miles, and then takes a 
 sailing scoot up the Maes to Rotterdam. As this 
 passage depends on the wind, it may sometimes be 
 tedious, so that the surest way, though the most 
 expensive, is to take what they call a rattel waggon, 
 that being the genteelest conveance, straight to 
 Rotterdam. In this way Mr. Cookson and we 
 intended to go, but the parson was instructed to 
 go by water, and by water he would go ; so Mr. 
 Cookson, we, and the two gentlemen, Webb and
 
 JOURNEY 57 
 
 Bowles, set out in two waggons, and left the parson 
 with the ladies, the Doctor, Fetter, the dancer, and 
 the Swiss. 
 
 This waggon is a long-bodied narrow cart, that 
 just holds two to sit in the wideness. There are 
 four benches in it, including the one the driver sits 
 in ; it has very soft cushions on the seats, four 
 wheels, and is very easy. It is drawn by two 
 horses, but has no pole, for the horses are yoked 
 to a cross-tree, and betwixt the two fore wheels 
 there is a peice of timber turned up like a hook, 
 and this serves for a rudder to the waggon, which 
 the driver governs with his foot. The intention 
 of this is, that in this way they can make a much 
 shorter turn, and pass another machine much 
 nearer, as the roads are very narrow, high raised on 
 the top of what they call dykes, with deep ditches 
 on each hand, and when you have to make a turn 
 it is very sharp, and often upon a little bridge which 
 goes over one of these ditches. The horses are 
 very well trained, and go at a good rate. 
 
 This way of travelling was very agreeable ; you 
 know to a minute how long you will be on the 
 road, for they count all by hours ; it is four hours 
 betwixt Helveot and Rotterdam. There was no 
 cover over our head, and we saw the whole country
 
 58 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 round, which is very flat, but not inclosed any 
 other way than by water, that is, in broad ditches 
 always full of water, and in some places canalls ; 
 there are bushes of trees here and there, for all 
 these dykes are planted, I suppose to make them 
 stand the firmer. All through the country are 
 these dykes, far from the sea, and made only to 
 prevent the water from going further should it 
 breake in at any part. 
 
 We got to Rotterdam in good time to dine ; the 
 waggon set us down on the other side of the Maes, 
 which we had to ferry over in about five minutes 
 sailing or rowing. When we arrived at the ferry, 
 Mr. Webb, who had come in another waggon, 
 told us he had rode in great pain ; he really was 
 in great distress, poor lad ! We came to the best 
 inn in Rotterdam, called the Swyn's Hooft, which 
 being interpreted, signifies the Sow's head. This 
 house was keeped by a Frenchman, and a Dutch 
 frowe of the first magnitude. There we had 
 things dressed in the Dutch manner, some of which 
 was new, which I shall tell you when I come to 
 display my acquirements in cookery. 
 
 I dined one day at the ordinary for curiosity, and 
 there was a collection of severall nations, French, 
 Dutch and German, and some of them could speak
 
 JOURNEY 59 
 
 a little English. We had sixteen dishes of meat, 
 and a very good desert of fruit, fresh and dry, for 
 we here had the finest strawberries and cherries 
 since ever we came to Holland. The price, besides 
 the wine, which every body paid as they called for 
 it, was a gilder the head. 
 
 Now, I must make you acquaint with the Dutch 
 money in order to save me calculation when I name 
 the price of any thing : The highest coin they have 
 here is a ducat, that is a very pretty gold peice, 
 broader and thinner than our half-guinea ; that, 
 when changed into silver, is five gilders five 
 stivers, and the nearest thing to our nine-and- 
 sixpence. The next coin to that is a gilder, which 
 is twenty stivers ; a stiver is rather more than our 
 penny, for our shilling goes for eleven stivers, our 
 half-crown for twenty-eight ; so that there is a loss 
 of a twelfth part in bringing English money here. 
 There is two stiver pieces called doublesees ; there 
 is likeways five stivers and one-half, which is 
 exactly the value of an English sixpence. Then 
 there are six stiver pieces, these they call skillings, 
 and twelve stiver pieces, called two skillings or 
 twelve stivers. They have the stiver in silver, and 
 the only copper coin is doits, of which there are
 
 60 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S JOURNEY 
 
 eight for a stiver. They have severall other silver 
 coins, as double and single dollars, but they are 
 not now so much in use ; and they have no other 
 gold coin but the ducat, which, by general agree- 
 ment, is allowed now to be current all over 
 Germany, but they are looked upon only as a sort 
 of conveniency, for they are not reckoned money, 
 but merchandise. 
 
 In any large payments, and in bills of exchange, 
 or payments of any extent, silver is the only thing 
 called money ; and when a man makes a bargain, 
 the payer will stipulate, that so much of the price 
 is to be received in ducats, or rather gold. They 
 have no paper credit, so you may judge what a 
 mint of that ugly ill-coined silver must be in this 
 country, when there are few pieces of it above 
 twenty-two pence of our money, which is a gilder.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Preliminary Note: ROTTERDAM depicted: Canals 
 and Coaches : Horses and Horse-chairs : Boomp- 
 jees : Markets : Dutch Houses : The Beds : 
 Pewter Work : MR. CRAWFURD'S House : 
 Peats and Charcoal: The Secret of Dutch 
 Bleaching: Worship of the Herring: Dutch 
 Farming: A Dutch Sunday: THE PEOPLE 
 criticised: Character and Appearance : Dutch 
 Vivers : Delft to the Hague. 
 
 [WHEN Mrs. Calder wood's party arrived in 
 Holland, the memory of defeat and humiliation 
 following the glories of Marlborough's campaigns 
 were strong in men's minds : how Marshal Saxe 
 had overrun the country ; one by one the barrier 
 towns falling into his hands, till the Low Countries 
 lay at the mercy of the French. The rout of 
 Fontenoy, and the Jacobite rising in Scotland had 
 paralysed alike both England and Holland. At 
 the moment of their greatest need a Dictator had
 
 62 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 arisen and been received with enthusiasm : Prince 
 William Charles Frisco became Stadtholder and 
 Captain General of Seven Provinces, offices after- 
 wards declared hereditary. William iv,, the Stadt- 
 holder, died in 1751. His widow, Anne, daughter 
 of King George n., succeeded to the government 
 in behalf of her son then three years of age 
 under the title of f Princess Governess.' The 
 rule of the Princess Anne was hardly a success. 
 Personally, she was disliked, notwithstanding that 
 Frederick the Great has recorded his opinion that 
 she was a woman of f magnanimity, prudence, and 
 an understanding superior to her sex.' 1 
 
 While the travellers were in the Netherlands, the 
 f Seven Years' War ' broke out, and it was with 
 difficulty that the Dutch Provinces stood clear of 
 the complications that ensued. ED.] 
 
 The sight of the town of Rotterdam is some- 
 thing very new. It is situated on a very fine 
 fresh water river, up which the largest ships can 
 come, from whence every large street in the town 
 has a canall, always supplied with fresh water every 
 tide ; the streets are on each side of the canall. 
 
 1 Letter in Univer. Mag., quoted in Davies's Hist, of Holland, 
 vol. iii. p. 430.
 
 JOURNEY 63 
 
 There are the houses on one hand each within 
 themselves ; they have commonly two steps, then 
 a flat of a black stone, or blew like marble, before 
 the door, and as much on each hand of the door as 
 hold a binch of the same stone, with the one end 
 to the street, and the other to the house, where the 
 carles 1 sit in the evening and smok their pipes. 
 Next to the steps is a foot-walk of bricks, laid with 
 their edges uppermost ; this sort of bricks they 
 call clinkers, and are as hard as any flint. Next 
 that they have a stone casway, about eight or nine 
 foot broad ; and, on the other side of that, to the 
 edge of the canall, is all laid with these clinkers, 
 and will be about as broad, or broader in many 
 places, than the casway, and in the middle of it is 
 planted a continued row of old fine elms, which 
 are keeped in nice order, and make a fine shade. 
 
 Ships of good burthen saill from canall to canall 
 to any part of the town, and all the bridges are 
 made to draw up tolet them through, so that the 
 town is intirely a mixture of houses, trees, and ship 
 masts from the one end to the other, and this is 
 the appearance and plan of every town in Holland. 
 
 Their streets are keeped as clean as any parlour 
 floor, washed from the door of every house cross 
 ' Old fellows.
 
 64 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 to the canall every day, with a besome made of 
 small twigs. The Dutch maid-servants do nothing 
 on earth but wash the house and the streets, and 
 the veshells of the house and kitchen ; none of 
 them wash their linnen at home, they are all washed 
 in publick fields and brought in wet, so that, when 
 the maids have not them to dry and dress, they 
 have nothing to do but slester 1 and wash. They 
 have plenty of water, and every house has a pump, 
 and they will have a pump of water in every story. 
 This is one inducement to wash, but the origi- 
 nall of it is the necessity, as the streets would in a 
 few days gather a fog 2 betwixt the bricks, and that 
 in a short time would certainly breed a vermine. 
 
 All the houses and the streets, and every thing 
 here, are all founded on timber pillars, which 
 makes the streets so noisy that it is quite intoler- 
 able ; a wheel-barrow makes as much noise in 
 passing as a coach and six would do in another 
 place, and one would think they put rattling things 
 to their machines to increase the noise. A great 
 many things they carry on slipes, 3 for instance 
 barrells. They have slipes of a great length, on 
 
 1 To slush, or slop. 2 Moss, or lichen. 
 
 3 To slipe, to move freely any weighty body which is dragged 
 through the mire. JAMIESON'S Scot. Diet.
 
 JOURNEY 65 
 
 which I have counted four-and-twenty empty 
 barrells. 
 
 All the bread and things of common use are 
 wheeled about in what they call a croy waggon y 
 which is like a large box set on two wheels ; it has 
 no shaft, but a crooked thing like a hook, which 
 they hold by, and pushes it before them, as fast as 
 they can run it drives away. You see no porters 
 here with burthens on their backs ; all is carried on 
 wheels or on slipes, which makes a prodigious and 
 constant ratling on the streets. 
 
 Then there are a great number of coaches, made 
 in a different form from ours. The coachman's seat 
 is much lower, the fore wheels so low as to run in 
 under the carriage when they turn. The coach is 
 supported by two large braces [that] go through 
 below it ; it hangs very easy. All the back part 
 is full glass down to the seat. They are large, and 
 clumsily made ; but all the Dutch carriages have a 
 certain roundness, and a coach and a ship have 
 the same bulge, in which both differ from other 
 nations ; but their coaches are most magnificently 
 ornamented, and gilded to a high degree. 
 
 A Dutch hacke is finer than any coach the King 
 of Britain has ; black japaned ground, with fine 
 
 carved corners ; cornices round the windows, all 
 
 E
 
 66 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 upon the carriage, and on the wheels all over 
 guilt. 
 
 The gentlemen's coaches are still finer, all 
 painted and japaned, and overlaid with coats of 
 arms and coronets, as if they were all dukes and 
 princes. They are all lined with flowered velvet, 
 a gold or silver fringe round the coachman's 
 seat; the finest liveries quite covered over with 
 pacements, 1 more than any drummer ever you saw, 
 broad laced hats and large shoulder knots ; the 
 harness, some of red Turkey leather, with a great 
 many fine buckles, double guilt ; the horses' mains 
 are plet with scarlet or other coulors of worsted 
 binding ; the reins are the same, and the horses has 
 a large bob of a tasell at each ear, such as hang at 
 a lady's chair, the same tying up their tails some- 
 times, and a large top betwixt their ears. 
 
 They mostly are mares, which are very large, 
 and finely shaped, very black, with long tails ; they 
 are so fat, so well keeped and clean skined, that 
 they are the prettiest creatures ever I saw, and 
 look much better in a coach than the light horses 
 now used in England ; they are not for such swift 
 travelling, but they are better for draught and deep 
 roads, and, were I to breed horses, I would have 
 1 Lace, passementerie.
 
 JOURNEY 67 
 
 them for that use ; the finest of them are bred in 
 Frisland, and cost about two hundred gilders the 
 piece, which is just 1 8 sterling. 
 
 The English horses of their size have risen since 
 the war to 25 the piece, and they could never 
 keep up their number of horses in England with- 
 out a great supply from this country every year. 
 
 Besides the coaches, there are many and various 
 sorts of machines for travelling in Holland. 
 There are phaetons made for holding six folks; 
 the back part is like a coach, where two can sit ; 
 then there is a window, then another seat with no 
 back to it ; then there is another window, and then 
 another seat ; then, below this is a little bench for 
 the driver ; this goes likeways without a pole, and 
 is conducted by a rudder ; when it comes down a 
 slope, (for there is no down hill,) the driver keeps 
 it back by puting his foot against the horses' 
 buttocks ; in this way they can yoke either two or 
 three horses a-breast. They have no harness but 
 a bridle, and sort of brecham l about their necks, 
 and yoked by ropes ; to the outermost side of 
 each bridle comes a small cord, which is all the 
 command the driver has, but he has no need, for 
 they are so well trained that they all obey by words. 
 
 1 The collar of a working horse. JAMIESON'S Diet.
 
 68 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 In a narrow road they will never flinch, though 
 the briars and thorns brush against their faces that 
 you would think it would pull out their eyes. 
 
 Such horses as they use in these carriages for 
 travelling are of a smaller size than those I 
 mentioned before, and will drive seven or eight 
 hours in a prodigious hot day, at the rate of 
 betwixt three and four miles an hour, without any 
 thing but a little water every two hours, and once 
 a little grass and a bit of rye bread. There is no 
 water on the roads for them to drink, as every wet 
 place has a bridge over it ; for that there are 
 certain houses on the road who have always grass 
 and water set out for passengers ; the driver drinks 
 a pot of beer, whiles his horses drink water ; so on 
 we go again. 
 
 There are a great many rivers and branches of 
 rivers to pass, which are too broad for bridges ; on 
 these they have the most convenient passage-boats 
 can be : I have drawn you a very bad draught of 
 it. Any carriage, with the horses and passengers 
 in it, drive just into it, and are ferried over ; the 
 boatmen pulling the rope pushes the boat from one 
 side of the river to the other ; so they drive out at 
 the other end, the end board lying closs on the 
 ground. This is an improvement may easily be
 
 JOURNEY 69 
 
 transplanted into Scotland, where there is much 
 need of it. 
 
 But, to return to the carriages. Another con- 
 veance is the post- waggon, the draught of which 
 I send you likeways. It is divided, the two first 
 seats from the last, next the driver, by a canvas 
 which draws up and down, so that it is like a 
 coach and a chaise joined, only the folks in the 
 coach and chaise may converse together or not as 
 they please, by putting up or down this canvas. 
 The two first sits face to face as in a coach, the other 
 seat faces the horses, so that they sit back to back. 
 
 Then they have a single horse chair, which is for 
 one or two persons to take the air in, and this is a 
 great diversion in the evenings. They are very 
 neat, light things, highly ornamented. You have 
 one of these an afternoon for half a crown, and 
 drive as much as you please. Nobody rides by, 
 for the horses are finely trained. Nobody rides 
 a-horseback here, nor in all Holland almost, but 
 the post. The country-people all travell in carts 
 and waggons of various sorts. The conveance in 
 the track-scoot I shall speak of when I come to 
 travel in it. 
 
 The town of Rotterdam is a very busy place,
 
 7o MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 ships loading and unloading every moment. One 
 of the finest streets in the town, they call the Bom- 
 case, is upon the side of the Maes, with a row of 
 fine trees before the windows, through which you 
 see an unnumerable quantity of ships and boats 
 continually passing, and many pleasure boats, on 
 which the young extravagant Dutch beaux lay out 
 a vast deall of money. One of them I heard of 
 had three sloops for his pleasure, of different sizes, 
 the largest cost a thousand pound sterling. 
 
 In this street there are the finest houses in the 
 place, and severall of the richest merchants live in 
 it. Every street is full of shops and ware-houses, 
 and work-houses, where every sort of people are at 
 work, and there is nothing comes from any part of 
 the world which is not to be had there. 
 
 There are certain places allotted for each 
 market ; the flesh is sold in a house and not 
 exposed to the air ; the fish is under shades ; the 
 herbs and fruit are in a place by themselves. 
 These last are carried up and down the streets in 
 baskets carried on the women's shoulders, and it is 
 surprising what a weight they can carry hung to a 
 peice of board which goes on their neck, to which 
 the baskets are hung. All the strawberries are 
 carried in little earthen pots set in those baskets,
 
 JOURNEY 71 
 
 and are of the large hoy boy kind, very good. 
 They are vastly well supplied with garden stuff of 
 all kinds; you buy one or two large cucumbers 
 for a doit; the Dutch live greatly on garden 
 things, rich and poor. 
 
 The houses all over Holland are built of brick, 
 the walls very thin, six inches is the common ; but 
 the strength of the houses is in the timber. They 
 have great oak beams, and severall houses, which 
 are not of the finest, incline forward so much that 
 the top is in some two foot off the plum, and 
 looks as if they were falling forward ; but this is 
 done, it seems, designedly, either to widen the 
 house above, or to make them cast the rain, but 
 I imagine it is just an old fashion that nobody 
 follows now. 
 
 I cannot commend their architecture by no 
 means. 
 
 They look upon a stair as a necessary evil, so 
 puts it in as little room as possible, and in as dark 
 an out of the way corner as they can find. If the 
 street runs a-squint the town, then all the houses 
 run a-squint in the fore wall, and every room is 
 two foot longer on the one side than the other. 
 The chimney places are very droll like ; they have 
 no jams nor lintell, as we have, but a flat wall the
 
 72 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 grate is set to, and then projects over it a 
 lum, 1 in the form of the cat-and-clay lums in the 
 country houses of timber, and commonly a muslin 
 or point ruffled pawn 2 round it ; above that is 
 what we call a chimney-piece, and above that 
 severall other little cornices for setting china upon, 
 which every house must be decked with. 
 
 They have excellent bedding here, fine down and 
 feather beds; most of the bottomes are timber, 
 and over that a straw matress, then a large down 
 bed, then a wool matress very thick ; a Dutch 
 bolster is at least three quarters broad, and not 
 made round as ours are, but in the pillow shape ; 
 the pillows are in proportion, and made square. 
 The finest bed I lay in in Rotterdam had no 
 blankets, but a soft callico, quilt very thick with 
 cotton, and very slightly quilted together. I 
 thought I should not have enough of clothes, so 
 took another, but soon found it too warm. 
 
 I expected to find in Holland the finest large 
 basons, and every other thing of Delph, but, to 
 my great surprise, found nothing but puther. 
 Every thing you can imagine is made of puther, 
 tea-kettle, tea-pot, milk-pot, bason, plates, casters, 
 
 1 Chimney. 
 
 2 A valance, as round a bedstead.
 
 JOURNEY 73 
 
 juggs, muggs, and every thing you ever saw in 
 silver or in china. 
 
 When I first went through the town, I saw, as 
 I thought, the most magnificent silver-smiths' 
 shops I could imagine, finely polished, in other 
 shops silver-work unpolished, prettily chaced, but 
 the culour of the inside of our new plate, and, 
 upon enquiry, found that all the polished work 
 was puther, and the unpolished silver. 
 
 Providence has certainly wisely ordered, for the 
 greater correspondence amongst mankind, that 
 every country should despise its own produce or 
 manufactures, otherways the Dutch, who are a 
 very wise and rationall people, could never prefer 
 the uggly puther to their fine china and Delph, nor 
 our printed cottons to their fine chinces. If you 
 say to a Dutch lady, 
 
 c Your gown is a vast pretty chince,' she will 
 say, 
 
 'It is not a chince, I do assure you, it is an 
 English cotton, which I value much more.' 
 
 They are not come into the taste of paper in 
 their houses ; the guilt leather, or silk, or tapestry, 
 is the only thing used. But the principall finery 
 and expence in their houses are carving, guilding, 
 stucko, marble, china of the ornamental kind and
 
 74 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 pictures. As for marble, there is the utmost 
 profusion of it; a very indifferent house has the 
 passages in marble, both above and below stairs. 
 The kitchen floors are marble for certain, lined 
 with the glased tile. 
 
 The Dutch houses are all after the same plan, 
 which at first appeared to me very odd; some 
 parts of the house that is to the street was three 
 stories, some parts two stories, some but one story, 
 and that lighted from the roof; but the reason of 
 this is, they are greatly confined to the street, so 
 can have but the length of one room to it, and 
 then the house runs a great way back. 
 
 Mr. Crawfurd's was the only fine house I was 
 in. It is built after the Dutch plan, which indeed 
 the ground prescribes. This house cost him, ware- 
 houses included, which lye behind the house, and 
 in the sunk story, seven thousand pounds. His 
 house is twenty-six foot long, and ninety foot deep. 
 Now, how is the middle of this house to be lighted, 
 but by cutting a room out in the middle of it ? so 
 that, instead of being five rooms in deepth, it is first 
 two, then a blank, and then two. In this blank 
 there is one room on the ground, lighted from the 
 roof, which some makes a parlour of, but they 
 make some other use of it.
 
 JOURNEY 75 
 
 This house is built of brick, some stone pillasters 
 and ornaments above the door as you come in. 
 There is a passage laid with very fine white marble, 
 every stone about six foot long and four broad. Off 
 that, all on one hand, enters the compting room, 
 and other places for his busness, and this lantern 
 room, as they call it, or hot-bed, as I called it. 
 Above stairs, and up a very good stair, (which is 
 a wonder,) there is another long passage, laid with 
 marble, and the walls lined with white tiles. The 
 fore room is a very pretty one, lined with green 
 and gold leather, the chimney in the English 
 fashion ; but as the walls are so thin, they cannot 
 contain it. It must be built so as to project upon 
 the room, and all that projection is marble back to 
 the wall. All above the lintell is carved in wood, 
 with brecates set out for china. 
 
 The roofs in all the best rooms, and in this, are 
 stucko, which was wrought by an Italian, much 
 cheaper than Rennick's, and of so hard a nature 
 that it is like stone. The roofs of the rooms are 
 all high, and the doors and windows very high ; 
 the windows will be about twelve by five or six 
 foot, and the doors more than seven foot. 
 
 The bricks of which the houses are built are 
 vastly hard ; Mr. Crawfurd had forgot to bore a
 
 76 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 hole for a bell, (which, in every house, is put so as 
 the handle is at the side of the outer door, that, 
 instead of knocking, you ring,) and in peircing 
 that hole through the brick, it was as hard to do as 
 if it had been marble. 
 
 Behind this room I have described there is a 
 parlour, lighted into the void ; beyond the void a 
 bed-chamber, and behind that a drawing-room. 
 You may judge of the windows, when three window 
 curtains and two peices of hangings will take ten 
 peices of Indian damask to hing them. 
 
 Above they have lodging rooms, a large nursery, 
 (as they have ten children, the eldest little more 
 than ten years old,) and a place for drying clothes, 
 which I thought vastly convenient. There are 
 joists laid alongst at the height one can reach, at 
 the distance of about eight foot from each other, 
 and on them are cut out, at about two foot 
 distance, a notch, and betwixt every joist, at that 
 distance, is laid a poll, on which the clothes are 
 hung ; the polls always lye on the joists, so they 
 just take down the one end, and string the clothes 
 on and put it up again, which is very clever. 
 
 Up in the garret lye the peats : the Dutch allow 
 nothing to be carried through their houses, so how 
 think you the peats gets up to the garret ? they
 
 JOURNEY 77 
 
 come in at the window, or rather a place made on 
 purpose, with a tackle and pulley ; a basket is tied 
 and let down, so everything is put into it that is 
 wanted up stairs. Then, to take them down again 
 for use, every story has a bunker for peats, and 
 these bunkers have a communication from each 
 other, and up to the garret, by timber spouts, such 
 as they let down malt with. The peats have little 
 ashes, so that a white-iron pan takes away the 
 whole day's ashes, which the maid carries away in 
 her hand with a cloth thrown over it. 
 
 I have been particular in the description of this 
 house, as I reckon it in the conveniency equall to 
 the best. Every one of the lower order is in the 
 same stile, only some very bad copies, and many 
 exceed it in expensive finishing : their kitchens are 
 very neat. 
 
 The peats are a vast conveniency, as they serve 
 for stove holes in any part of the kitchen without 
 a vent above, as the peats they use in the stoves are 
 chared, and have no smock, that is, they are half 
 burnt, and then smothered ; but, at any rate, they 
 are of a much finer kind than we have. They are 
 all fished with nets out of a lake, like coffee grounds, 
 then laid out in heaps to dry, and so cut into 
 square peices ; they are brought to every town by
 
 78 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 the cannalls. Those peats have a fine heat, and 
 answer all sorts of kitchen use better than coals, as 
 with them they use every sort of earthen vessells 
 for the kitchen. 
 
 This, or charcoal, with an earthen pot, is the 
 whole secret of Madamosel's boulie we could never 
 light upon ; and this is like many imported im- 
 provements, which, by not answering, gives our 
 country the character of being stupid, self-conceited, 
 wedded to our own way, etc. when, behold, the 
 very materials are not in use amongst us, that such 
 things can only be done by. 
 
 I must here make a degression, least I forget it, 
 of some things of the same kind. How often 
 have I heard us blamed for the Dutch excelling us 
 so much in both whiteness and cheapness in their 
 bleaching ? The Dutch say they have certainly a 
 secret, and a method of bleaching which we cannot 
 obtain, and our wise Trustees 1 have bestowed a 
 
 1 During the troubles in which the Fletcher family, and many 
 other Whigs, were involved in the times of persecution, the 
 mother of Andrew Fletcher, Lord Milton (see post}, who 
 was a daughter of Sir David Carnegie of Pitarrow, went to 
 Holland, taking with her a clever millwright and a weaver, 
 in the hope that by their means she might be able to discover
 
 JOURNEY 79 
 
 vast deall of money upon rogues, who pretend 
 they have got the secret of the Dutch bleaching, 
 when the Dutch have no more secret than what 
 Margaret Pedie [has], and I suppose her great- 
 grandmother had before her, which is boiling her 
 cloth and laying it out to the sun, and watering, 
 and putting it into sowr milk when it is near white. 
 They give their servants a great day's wage, 1 
 perhaps twenty-pence, and yet they bleach at two- 
 pence farthing their yard, which is our three 
 quarters. 
 
 The secret of it is what I am afraid can never 
 be brought into Scotland, at least the two main 
 articles, the last may. First, there is no duty on 
 either soap or pot-ashes. The wood-ashes they 
 get down from Germany by the Rhine, at a 
 perfect trifle, as any body may imagine, that, if an 
 
 the secret of the weaving and dressing of linen as practised by 
 the Dutch. 
 
 In 1754 and 1755, * the Commissioners and Trustees for 
 improving Fisheries and Manufactures in Scotland ' were very 
 zealous in their endeavours to better the system of making and 
 dressing linen throughout Scotland, and at an outlay of 3000 
 elaborated a scheme for the erection of stations and schools ; and 
 the training of teachers and artificers all over the Highlands. 
 See Scots Magazine, 1754 and 1755. 
 
 1 This phrase still is commonly used in Scotland where 
 ' wages ' would be employed in England.
 
 8o MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 ash-midden is worth carriage, it is worth but little 
 more. In the next place, the weather is quite 
 serene and constant, and, for most part in summer, 
 very hot ; and, last of all, the water is quite of a 
 different quality. There are no springs in all 
 Holland, though the country is full of water. 
 This water falls from the heavens in winter, and 
 covers the whole face of the ground, and what is 
 carried with great rapidity to the sea with us, by 
 every river and burn, with them lies in the ground 
 for want of levell. 
 
 For this reason, the whole country is cut into 
 these cannalls and ditches in order to receive it, 
 and what lies in the hollow places, and cannot 
 get into the cannall, is drawn up by wind-milns, and 
 thrown into the cannalls, and this is one great use 
 of the unnumberable wind-milns through Holland : 
 besides, these cannalls have all a circulation of 
 fresh water from the great rivers, which keeps 
 them fresh all summer. But it must appear, at 
 this rate, that the water here is of a much softer 
 quality than any in Scotland, and the only way 
 that can be supplied with us for bleaching is, to 
 make ponds which shall keep as much water as will 
 serve a bleaching-feild all summer. 
 
 Harlem, which is the famous place for bleaching,
 
 JOURNEY 81 
 
 has the finest water ; there are many sand hillocks 
 near it, which the water comes through, and, as it 
 were, filters it from all sort of minerall or bad 
 ingredients of any kind. 
 
 Most of the reproaches our country meets with 
 are as ill founded as this, and can only be the 
 effects of want of enquiry or reflection. 
 
 The Dutch herron will cost me another de- 
 gression, so I shall mention them here. You know 
 there were great hopes conceived of the British 
 herron fishery, which has not succeeded, and every 
 body said that is very odd. Will you see how the 
 Dutch herron fishery always thrives, and how many 
 bushes they have ? but you must know that that 
 affair of herron is like witchcraft here. The first 
 herron that comes in are cured after a particular 
 manner. The French salt is refined here, and then 
 sent out to cure the herron. Every town, or 
 certain ships, are priviledged by turns to bring 
 home the first herron, which no sooner arrive, than 
 every man, woman and child in Holland run upon 
 them as if they were mad ; they will sell in the 
 morning for half a crown the peice, and at night 
 come down to threepence. 
 
 The first herron arrived, since I came here, 
 about three o'clock in the morning, and I was
 
 82 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 told one of the great burgomasters in this town sent 
 out for a couple, and sat up in his bed and eat 
 them. It can be nothing but a sort of naturall 
 instinct that makes them be so run upon, for it is 
 observed no disease rages the time of the herron, 
 and they cure every body that is not well. They 
 are all eat raw, and appear to be so fat that they are 
 almost transparent, which must be owing to the 
 curing, for they are the same with ours. They are 
 not very salt, and they call them fresh herron ; 
 they will not keep any time, and ships are constantly 
 coming in, and they are as fast eat up. 
 
 They are likeways sent to all parts of Germany, 
 and the first which arrives are sent in a present, 
 express to the King of Prussia. Suppose this is 
 but home consumpt, and brings in no money from 
 other countries, yet, finding employment for a 
 people at home makes them not think of going out 
 of the country ; and when they apply themselves 
 to get bread at home, they think of many ways of 
 doing to the advantage of their country. 
 
 All the folks in Holland who live by carrying, 
 (that is, upon the water, either out at sea or on the 
 cannalls,) their whole family lives in the boat, and 
 they have no other house ; wife and bairns all live 
 in the scoot always. But these track-scoots who
 
 JOURNEY 83 
 
 carry passengers have no family living in them. 
 This is the reason why the Dutch fish the herron 
 and other fish cheaper than other nations. The 
 master of the vessell is always at home, and does 
 not keep two families, and they all live on the 
 herron that they catch, so has no provision to take 
 with them but bread and cheese. 
 
 I find it was a great loss that I could not speak 
 to the folks and ask questions, so that there are 
 many things I could not inform myself of. I went 
 with Mrs. Crawfoord to a dairy farm, for all the 
 grounds almost in the province of Holland are 
 grass. They have lost, by the disease, all their 
 fine breed of cattle, and, by the supply from 
 Denmark and other countrys, the cattle is become 
 small. The ground belongs mostly to the boors ; 
 there are almost no other lairds in the province of 
 Holland. 
 
 No gentleman asks more than a house and 
 garden, and, indeed, it would be needless to have 
 land, for, of a hundred gilders of rent, there comes 
 off seventy gilders of taxes ; for it takes the whole 
 rents of the country, and much more, to support it 
 and the government ; as it is all art, 1 it must be 
 keept up at a great expence. 
 
 1 Artificial.
 
 84 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 This dairy I went into ; the woman, her second 
 husband, (who had been her servant,) and her son, 
 lived in [it.] There is not a wife in Scotland that 
 is not as well drest or genteel like as her, and yet 
 she had had two thousand pounds to her tocher. 
 Her first husband was very rich, and her marrying 
 the servant man was not an odd thing at all, he was 
 as good as she. They keep forty cows, and had 
 lost their whole stock three times over with the 
 disease. I inquired into the management of their 
 milk, and found that, so soon as it is milked, they 
 sieth 1 it into a brass veshell tinned within, of the 
 shape of the green water-canns used by our country 
 people. They immediatly put those veshells into 
 cold water, and let them stand till the milk is cold ; 
 then they pour it into earthen veshells, narrow 
 below and wide above, and let it stand only a day 
 and half, and take care that the cream be not 
 sower in the least. They churn three times a-week, 
 and what the churn wants of being full, they fill it 
 up with new milk, which is sometimes more or less, 
 but often a third part. This churn is wider in pro- 
 portion than ours, and like the hold of a nine gallon 
 
 1 To sythe or sey, to strain any liquid for its purification 
 through a scarce or sey dish. JAMIESON.
 
 JOURNEY 85 
 
 barrell ; it works with a churn-staff, and is wrought 
 by a very simple machine which is moved by a 
 horse in a little house adjoining, yoked in a thing 
 of the nature of Lundin's pump. 
 
 But the great nicety of the Dutch butter is the 
 salting of it ; they never put more salt on it than 
 is common to put in England on the first butter, 
 which is just a little more than we do. The pro- 
 portion, they told me, was like our mutchkin of 
 salt to twenty pound weight of butter, and with 
 this I eat butter of last summer, which I did not 
 know but that it was churned the day before. 
 This salt they work into the butter after it has 
 been washed from the milk as well as possible, and 
 pour a pickle on it till the next morning, then pour 
 it off, and so on till the barrell is full. The 
 barrells are like half ankers, but all depends on 
 the keeping it. When in the barrells, it should 
 stand near nothing that it attracks a taste from ; 
 where it can contract no taste, nor be too dry. So, 
 in the best houses in Holland, they have a place 
 for their butter like a press, lined with tiles, and, 
 when they take any out, they never hollow it, but 
 slice it smooth off, and the least bit must not be 
 left on the sides of the cask.
 
 86 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 The Dutch churches are very clean and pretty, 
 all paved, some with marble, some with stone. 
 They have very few seats fixed, and most people 
 sit on chairs. This church is battered 1 as full of 
 escutchions as the wall can hold. There is a fine 
 organ in each, and in severall, very pretty monu- 
 ments of the Orange family, and of their great 
 admiralls, as De Roiter, etc. I think they are the 
 best set of reformers ? for they have just keeped 
 what they could affoard, and no more ; and whim 
 or fancy never governs the Dutch. 
 
 A Sunday is very droll in Holland; they 
 almost all wear black to go to church, and you 
 would take them for so many Seceders, they put 
 on such a Sunday face, and walk as if they would 
 not look up. No sooner is the sermon over but 
 they fall to feasting, drinking and dancing. This 
 was certainly not originally presbiterian ; but, as 
 their situation made all nations come amongst 
 them, they could easily perceive they would not get 
 a day, in which there was no work, keeped in a 
 manner peculiar to themselves, so I suppose they 
 thought it better to permit such things, than to let 
 them be done by way of a sin ; which, to be sure, 
 was right, for, when folks come to think light of 
 1 Plastered, literally pasted.
 
 JOURNEY 87 
 
 one sin, they soon think light of others : and you 
 see, in all penitent confessions, that breach of 
 Sunday was the first thing loosend their con- 
 science. 
 
 The Dutch folks are very solid and rationall. 
 They are not the people I would like to live 
 among, by their appearance ; but one must admire 
 them for their solidity, industry, and pains-taking 
 in every thing, and for the latitude they give to 
 every body to follow their own way. They have 
 no notion of what we call whity whaty, nor can 
 they, I find, comprehend one's being undetermined. 
 Though they have no vivacity, yet I think they 
 are smart, and smarter, a great deall, than the 
 English, that is, more uptaking. 1 I must be 
 judge of this, as I went very much about by my- 
 self, and into every shop and place, and I found 
 it very easy to make them understand what I 
 wanted to know about their business, though I had 
 not above ten words of Dutch, which did, you will 
 allow, require some smartness. 
 
 A china wife and I turned very great ; 3 she gave 
 me her direction, and set down the price of several 
 
 1 ' Uptak ' in Scotland is equivalent to Anthony Trollope's 
 ' observation and reception.' See Auto biography, ii. 47. 
 
 2 Intimate.
 
 88 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 of her best things, and told me the age of every 
 peice in her shop. It was from her I bought the 
 small bottles I send you. They have no notion 
 of your troubling them ; if they think you come 
 unresolved whether to buy or not, and in that 
 case are very short, and ask you if you intend to 
 buy, or if you be wanting anything ; but, if you 
 buy a triffle, or say that you are a stranger look- 
 ing for curiosity, or that you would buy, but 
 cannot carry things from place to place, then they 
 are very civill. 
 
 The thing I think the oddest about the Dutch 
 is their appearance ; there [are] almost none of 
 them have the look of gentlemen or ladies. The 
 men are tolerable ; they have the air of sober men 
 of busness, but, for the ladies, they look like 
 chambermaids, put on them what you please, and 
 they dress very plain. A fine guilt coach will 
 pass, and in it a chamber-maid in her Sunday's 
 clothes, or an old worn-out housekeeper ; and, 
 when you see them walking from church, drest, 
 they are just like a lady from the country, who has 
 not had on a hoop, nor a fan in her hand, for 
 twenty years, looking very prim, with her elbows 
 into her sides, her two hands streight out before 
 her, holding the fan out likeways, as if she was to
 
 JOURNEY 89 
 
 red 1 her way by it, and hagheling, 2 as if she 
 thought all her pitecots were coming off. And 
 this is a description of every body, for there is no 
 odds 3 in any town, either in the appearance of the 
 people or the place, for, shut your eyes, and you 
 will not know in what town you are, they are 
 so like. 
 
 What do you think of their making salt in 
 Rotterdam, as a proof of their industry ? The 
 salt water is brought severall leagues off, and their 
 peats from high up in Germany, yet they made 
 salt almost as cheap as we buy it in Scotland ; till 
 of late, that the States has laid a duty on it. The 
 salt water is brought in a boat, which is made to 
 hold a certain quantity. The boat goes down the 
 Maes out to sea, they pull out a cork, and she 
 draws as much water as she can hold ; in with the 
 cork, and away they come, and it is pumped out 
 of the boat into the salt-pan. This is an improve- 
 ment to Mr. Martin, least his water is too fresh. 
 
 Every thing of vivers 4 is dear in Holland but 
 vegetables, upon which the commons live almost 
 
 1 To clear, or straighten. 
 
 2 Not translatable by any 
 uch circumlocution. 
 
 3 Difference. 4 Food, provisions. 
 
 2 Not translatable by any word in English, nor at all without 
 much circumlocution. 
 
 9? Jt 
 
 -* Ait- i. * - 
 
 . '-
 
 9 o MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 all summer, and the better sort a great deall. 
 Every body, great and small, sups on sallad with 
 oil and vinegar. Their cookery is preferable to 
 ours in all sorts of stewes or stoved things. They 
 stew almost all the vegetables which we boil, 
 which I think is a great improvement, as it gives 
 many of them a taste which otherways has none ; 
 for instance, carrots stewed as we do cabbage. 
 Turky-beans and pease they make great use of, 
 which are very good boiled, or rather stewed in the 
 hulle, 1 like kidney-beans : they have no stoffin 
 within ; I have seen them in Scotland ; the English 
 name is f pease without parchment.' 
 
 Nobody chooses to eat beef in Holland at 
 present, for the disease ; for, whenever they are 
 seized with it, they kill them, and eating them 
 does no harm. 
 
 I have just now heard of a hand to carry this to 
 London, so shall refer further minute particulars, 
 and carry myself as far on as I have time to do in 
 this. It was on the last day of June, I beleive, we 
 got to Rotterdam, which was on Tuesday, and on 
 Saturday we hired a pheatone, and set out for the 
 Hague. In our way we dined at Delph, and went 
 to see the Delph manufactory, which is much the 
 1 Pod.
 
 JOURNEY 91 
 
 same as you saw at Glasgow ; but, least the com- 
 position be other than they have, I brought away 
 a peice of it. They had very little of it to dis- 
 pose of at the place, and that very dear ; it is all 
 sent out of the country somewhere, for there is 
 little made, for I told you they did not use it in 
 Holland. 
 
 The road betwixt Delph and the Hague is 
 about five miles of a fine avenue, quite shaded, 
 with a cannall on one hand, and grass grounds full 
 of cattle or hay on the other.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 At the Hague : The Light-headed English : Dr. 
 Monro cross-examined : The Dutch Court : The 
 c PRINCESS GOVERNANTE ' : Princess Caroline : 
 The Young St ad t holder : States Chambers : 
 f House in the Wood ' : Scheveling : Arbours and 
 Summer-houses : A Burgomaster's Politics : The 
 Anabaptist Professor's Views : Dutch Jews ; 
 The Burgomaster's gratitude : Fair at Harlem : 
 AMSTERDAM: Frederic the Great incognito: 
 Philosophy of Travel. 
 
 THE Hague is a very pretty town, with cannalls 
 and trees like the rest, but many very fine houses, 
 which is a great ornament to the street. We 
 lodged in an English house, and Mr. Brown, our 
 landlord, I imagined had been there all his life, as 
 he spoke broken English, but, to my surprise, 
 found he had been but two years there, and had 
 hardly got any Dutch, so that I suppose poor Mr. 
 Brown will soon fall through betwixt two stools.
 
 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S JOURNEY 93 
 
 (N.B. All the English one finds settled abroad 
 in that sort of station are the lightest headed divels 
 in the world.) 
 
 Here we forgathered 1 with our fellow passengers, 
 the lady and her son Peter, and Miss, and the 
 doctor. The doctor declared he had not tasted 
 meat he could eat since he came to Holland, till 
 that day that he had eaten roasted chickens and 
 green pease, and imputed it to the English house. 
 Mr. Calderwood begun to sift him, as he wore a 
 Scots name, viz. Monro, and asked him if he was 
 come of Scots parents, or if he knew Proffessor 
 Monro 2 at Edinburgh ? 
 
 c Yes, yes,' said he, f he is my relation, but it is 
 by his wife.' 
 
 f Then you are related to Sir Alexander Mac- 
 donald's family ? ' said Mr. Calderwood, at which 
 the doctor was non-plussed, and asked him if he 
 had ever been at Cambridge, and talked very fast 
 about cocks and bulls of Cambridge, by which he 
 found out that the doctor could not give a very 
 
 1 Forgather ' was an excellent word before it was ill-sorted.' 
 It cannot be used in place of ' to meet ' as has been attempted of 
 late. You cannot ' forgather ' a person. 
 
 2 Professor Alex. Monro, primus, the great anatomist, and 
 founder of the Medical School of Edinburgh, resigned his chair 
 in 1759.
 
 94 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 good reason for his being called Monro, and, after 
 some conversation he had in the ship about the 
 Duke of Grafton, concluded he was a bastard of 
 his who bore that name. 
 
 I would warn every man, who would conceal 
 his birth or station, not to choice a Scots name, 
 for the first of the country he meets will find him 
 a counterfit. 
 
 The Court was not at the Hague ; they were 
 paying a visit to the old Princess at her country 
 house in Frisland. The Princess Governante 1 is 
 in but a bad sort of condition ; she cannot keep 
 up her eyes all day, but sleeps closs, and, in her 
 coach on the street, her head lies on her breast, 
 rolling like a bullet, fast asleep. Whenever she 
 goes to bed, she cannot sleep a wink. In summer 
 she is like to starve of cold, and in winter like to 
 die with heat ; so that she is contra all human 
 kind. Her daughter, Princess Caroline, 2 1 beleive, 
 is about fourteen ; she is as big a fraue as is in 
 Holland, and nobody to look at her would take 
 
 1 Anne, Princess Royal of England, married in 1733 Wil- 
 liam iv., Prince of Orange-Nassau, Hereditary Stadtholder. On 
 his death in 1751 the Princess was appointed ' Governess of the 
 United Provinces ' for her son William v. Anne died in 1759. 
 
 2 Daughter of William iv. of Orange-Nassau ; afterwards 
 married to the Prince of Nassau- Weilburg.
 
 JOURNEY 95 
 
 her to be under thirty. They say the Prince is a 
 very pretty boy, but it is thought a great chance 
 if he claw the head of an old Statholder. 1 The 
 Princess Governante is not well liked ; she imploys 
 none of the Dutch in any office almost, and 
 imploys Germans and Swiss in her troops, and, in 
 short, is under a weak ministry. I suppose the 
 Statholder will be thrown overboard sometime or 
 other to lay a storm. 
 
 What is shown to strangers here are the 
 churches, horses, guards, and States' chambers. 
 There are three chambers ; first, where the States 
 meet at a long table, covered with green cloth ; at 
 the head is a chair for the Statholder, at the one 
 
 1 A Scotch figure of speech, meaning that the boy would 
 probably not live to old age, or hold that dignity if he did. 
 Mrs. Calderwood's forecast may be said to have come true. 
 After a reign of thirty years, marked by troubles and much un- 
 popularity, the Stadtholder retired to England on the invasion of 
 his country by the army of the French National Convention in 
 1795. Here he figured as 'the sleepiest Prince of Europe.' 
 The efforts of Thomas Sheridan and Henry Erskine scarcely 
 sufficed to keep him awake : but he was not stupid. The story 
 of the Stadtholder and Dr. Beverley of Cambridge, how the 
 Prince, inquiring about a text, would not accept for answer 
 either the ' Second Epistle of Jude,' or ' the Second Chapter,' 
 has been preserved in the lines : 
 
 ' For the future be shy, nor dare to reply, 
 But remember the Second of Jude.''
 
 96 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 side one for the Pensionary, and twenty-four of 
 the others ; before each lies a quire of paper, and 
 betwixt two is an inkstandish. The second room 
 is for the embassadors being received, or their 
 meeting, and the other is for the triall of state 
 crimes. In this last are severall pictures, reckoned 
 very fine ; they are but about a foot and a half 
 square, and the three first an English peer offered 
 twenty thousand pounds for. They are the 
 crewalties of the Spaniards before the revolt, and 
 their liberty obtained by the Prince of Orange. 
 The rest of this building is the State-house of the 
 Hague, for every town is under its own govern- 
 ment, and none has more to say than another, 
 further than the richest has influence over the rest 
 by their power of serving them ; by which means 
 Amsterdam obtains a leading in the province of 
 Holland, and the province of Holland leads the 
 other provinces, so that the Burgomasters of 
 Amsterdam in a manner govern the country. 
 
 Upon Sunday we went down to see what they 
 call the House in the wood. This is a very neat 
 house of the Prince's, in the midst of a wood, 
 which begins at the town, and reaches four or five 
 miles. It is all cut out in broad and narrow roads 
 and walks, and in that every body walks, or drives
 
 JOURNEY 97 
 
 in their coaches, and that night being Sunday, it 
 was very full. There is not much fine furniture 
 in this house, but some very good paintings, and 
 fine marble and stuco, and a painting of a whitish 
 culour like stuco, that you cannot beleive is not 
 raised from the wall till you touch it. There is 
 a truly Chineas room and closet, with japaned 
 finishing, and fine china, and all Indian. 
 
 I was through all the stables at the Hague ; the 
 horses were out at grass, but you might have eat 
 off the floors for cleaness, and not the least smell 
 of a stable. There was fifty-eight treveses 1 in 
 one end, and thirty in another ; the poles hung 
 betwixt the stalls were covered with plates of 
 copper, and the side of the manger likeways, to 
 hinder the horses from biting it with their teeth. 
 I cannot see how the Princess can keep up things 
 in proportion to her stables and coaches, with 
 servants to wait on them. 
 
 Her coaches were very fine, and of all kinds, but 
 no grander than many others ; and, indeed, unless 
 you come to fine painting, they can go no greater 
 length in guilding and carving. I saw a chariot 
 exposed to sale, quite new, as a generall who had 
 bespoke it was dead. The whole ground of it was 
 
 1 Treviss, the partition between two stalls. JAMIESON. 
 G
 
 98 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 gold, and green flowers painted on it ; it cost but 
 ,100 sterling at first, and was sold for about 
 ^75 ; had it been made at London, it would have 
 cost in proportion to other machines, ^300. 
 
 We went likeways to Schevelin, which is a little 
 town on the sea, about two miles from the Hague, 
 and may be called their Leith, but that no vesell 
 larger than a fishing sloop lies there. The sand 
 is all of the gray culour, and large hillocks of it, 
 with bent on them ; [it] is all the defence they have 
 against the sea. Last winter, they lived in the terror 
 of their lives ; eight hundred men wrought night 
 and day to keep the sea from breaking in, and there 
 was a battry of cannon placed, the firing of which 
 was to be a warning to the people to make their 
 escape into Utrecht or Gelderland, which lies 
 higher than the province of Holland and the Hague. 
 
 We saw, betwixt the Hague and Schevelin, the 
 fine gardens made by the Duke of Portland, and 
 now possessed by his son, the Count Bentick ; l 
 
 1 William, Count Bentinck of Rhoon and Pendrecht in Hol- 
 land, and of Terrington St. Clement's, County Norfolk ; second 
 son of the first Duke of Portland, was created a Count of the 
 Holy Roman Empire by the Emperor Charles vi. in 1732 ; he 
 married in the following year the Countess Charlotte, only 
 daughter and heir of Anthony n., Count of Aldenburgh, 
 Sovereign Lord of Kniphausen, etc. He died in 1774.
 
 JOURNEY 99 
 
 there is nothing but a summer-house on the place, 
 but the gardens are of great extent, with walks and 
 hedges, water-works and shell grottos and oran- 
 geries, all with a neatness and cleanness which 
 appears no place but in Holland. There [is] no 
 green grass under trees in all this country where 
 one is to walk, which is certainly a good contriv- 
 ance ; if it is not keeped, it is very rough and 
 course, and if keeped, is very expensive, and 
 besides, it is damp, and wants air. They have 
 no gravel either, so they supply the want with 
 sand, which does very well. 
 
 They are very fond of arbours and summer- 
 houses of honeysuckle, and long walks, which 
 they train up with an hedge on every side, and 
 after it is come to a proper hight, then they pleat 
 the boughs over to meet, and arches the roof with 
 stick, like girths, to which they tye the tender 
 shoots, till it is closs above, and clips it as smooth 
 ever after as the rooff of a house ; and these, with 
 a sand floor, make a very pretty walk, oppen at 
 both ends. They have a way of rearing their thorn 
 hedges here contrary to ours ; they bring them first 
 to their hight, and then to the thickness. The 
 way is, they train them up upon small pailling-like 
 espaliers, and tye them round with rushes to it, till
 
 ioo MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 it come to a proper hight, which it comes to in 
 about three years, and then they keep it down, 
 and clip the sides of it, till it is at a proper thick- 
 ness. 
 
 And all the little gardens in Holland are vastly 
 neat. Round every town are little country houses ; 
 they are very showy, they train vines upon the 
 walls by speking over the walls, and nailing the 
 vines to that. They have little parterrs laid in 
 the shapes of flowers, with culoured bits of glass, 
 which look very pretty. They lay out vast summs 
 on those country houses betwixt the Hague and 
 Harlem. They stand very closs to each other, 
 and no man has more than a house, garden and 
 park ; and that he will lay out ten, fifteen, twenty 
 thousand pounds sterling upon, in statues, marble 
 grottos, fine furniture and paintings ; and there 
 are the finest flower gardens in all Holland, and 
 the country there is but a dead sand. 
 
 We set out from the Hague for Amsterdam in 
 the post waggon : when we came to take our seats, 
 there came in a very genteel well-looked man, 
 about thirty-five years old, his own hair, and looked 
 liker a French than a Dutchman ; he had a very 
 fine diamond ring, and looked like a finer man of
 
 JOURNEY 101 
 
 note in that country than you would think would 
 travell in a post waggon, so we took him for a 
 stranger. Mr. Calderwood spoke to him in French, 
 but he answered in very good English, which I 
 was very glad of, as it was dull for me to travel a 
 whole day with folks I did not understand. 
 
 After we were set, a very tall, grave-like man 
 came up to take his place, but, finding there was 
 only a back seat, he chused to go up beside John, 
 who sat on the seat which was oppen to the horses, 
 behind where the driver sat. The first man told 
 us that man was professor of devinity amongst the 
 anabaptists at Amsterdam, and a very learned man. 
 After he was set, we let down the canvas which 
 divided him from us, and, when he heard us 
 speaking English, he joined in the conversation, 
 though he did not speak it so well as the other. 
 
 We soon found the first was a Burgomaster of 
 Amsterdam ; he knew all the places on the road 
 and told us the great folks who lived in them. 
 Severalls l of the best were his near relations ; such 
 an one was embassador in France, and such an 
 other had been or was embassador in England, and 
 
 1 Throughout her writings, Mrs. Calderwood, as here, 
 occasionally uses the plurals of adjectives, according to the old 
 Scots fashion.
 
 102 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 so on, and the valuable and curious peices of furni- 
 ture they had. We got all the Dutch politicks ; 
 we joked them upon the rest of Europe saying 
 they were in the interest of France, but the 
 professor said the English could not be perswaded 
 but they must be in the interest of France, since 
 they would not join in the war, but that was a 
 mistake ; for they loved the English better than 
 the French, but they loved themselves better than 
 either, and that a strict neutrality was their true 
 interest. 
 
 c The English,' said he, c has been very rash, and 
 it will be a most unhappy war ; had the French 
 begun and hurt Britain in Europe, we are bound 
 by treaty to give a certain specified assistance, but 
 America is out of that question.' 
 
 They were very inquisitive about the ministry 
 in England, for they said it appeared to be a very 
 weak administration. We found they had both 
 been in England, and were acquented with severalls 
 of the great folks, especially the young man. He 
 said he could not understand the pleasure the 
 English took in horse-races and cock-fighting, such 
 cruel diversions, but said, what things folks were 
 accustomed to, they did not reflect upon the cruelty 
 of them; for, when he was in England, a gentleman,
 
 JOURNEY 103 
 
 whose house he was at desired him to show him the 
 way of dressing a water-sutchy. 
 
 ' I took/ said he, f the pearches alive, and scraped 
 them with a knife, for otherways the scales do not 
 come off. 
 
 c " Oh !" cried the Englishman, " was there ever 
 such cruelty, to scrape the fish alive ? " 
 
 f " Are not you as cruel," said I, <c who can take 
 so much pleasure in tormenting a poor cock for 
 your diversion?" 
 
 c " Truly," says the Englishman, " I never 
 thought on that before." 
 
 '"Nor I," said I, " of the pain it gives the 
 pearches."' 
 
 This puts me in mind of an English boy who 
 served in the inn at Rotterdam. We asked him 
 how he liked Holland ; he said, very well, but it 
 was not like England. We questioned him to find 
 in what he thought England excelled it to the like 
 of him, and found that his fault to Holland was, 
 there was no horse-racing nor cock-fighting. 
 
 ' In good faith,' says John, who was standing 
 by, f the Dutch has some other tow in their rock I' 1 
 
 1 Rock, a distaff. To have other tow in one's rock ' is a 
 common Scotch phrase, meaning to have business on hand of 
 quite another kind.
 
 io 4 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 The professor was very fond of the English 
 books, in particular the divines; and to see the 
 odds 1 of clergymen in one country from another, 
 or rather the Dutch from any other ! a generall 
 tolleration to all religions intirely puts out bigotry. 
 This man, who differed from others in some re- 
 ligious points, had no notion of suppressing or 
 discouraging popery; on the contrary, he exclaimed 
 against laws for suppressing it, or using any means 
 but perswasion, and wondered how the English 
 could make laws for Ireland to hinder protestants 
 and papaists marrying together ; and the Burgo- 
 master told us their custom with regard to that 
 was, that when papaists and protestants married 
 together, they made a contract concerning the way 
 the children were to be educated. If any of the 
 parties died, if the survivor did not keep up to the 
 articles, arid the friends complained to the magis- 
 trate, they called for the contract, and ordered it 
 to be fulfilled ; and that he had been in that office 
 last year, and during the time he filled it, he had 
 ordered severall protestant fathers and mothers to 
 breed their children papaists, in terms of their con- 
 tract of marriage. 
 
 This puts me in mind of the Jews, who are the 
 1 Differences.
 
 JOURNEY 105 
 
 drollest set I ever saw. We call them, by way of 
 reproach, smouce, but that is only a name for a cer- 
 tain sort of them ; I asked a man if he was a 
 smouce, and he said, <Ya, Mefrowe.' 
 
 They wear their bairds, and the women you will 
 know by a certain sort of mutch 1 they wear with a 
 double row of plaits, and close battered 2 to their 
 faces, so that you see none of their hair, and some 
 has a curl of wool round their faces, by way of a 
 wigg, some black and some white. 
 
 I went into their synegogue one morning, and 
 they were at service, but what kind I could not 
 find out, but I suppose it was a fast-day, for there 
 were two men standing on the altar, I suppose, for 
 it was raised higher than the rest, in the midst of 
 the room ; there was a lamp burning, though the 
 sun was shining. They were both reading aloud, 
 with harn clouts 3 on their heads, and severall of 
 the congregation had harn clouts likeways. Some 
 were sitting with books in their hands, some stand- 
 ing, reading or looking on a book, some walking 
 about, snuffing and cracking 4 as loud as if they had 
 
 1 A cotton cap. 2 Pasted, plastered. 
 
 3 Literally brain-cloths, a cloth round the head. ' Harn 
 pan,' the skull, is used by Gawin Douglas, and frequently by Sir 
 Walter Scott. 4 Conversing, gossiping.
 
 106 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 been in the street ; in short you never saw such a 
 congregation ; some were coming in, some going 
 out, and those who went out had their harn clouts 
 in their pockets. 
 
 In Amsterdam, they have a quarter of the town 
 to themselves, and they say it is the oddest, nasty, 
 raggamuffin-like place ever was seen, and people 
 go to see the Jews' quarter for a curiosity. 
 
 But to return to our company. The first time 
 we changed horses, which we did three times by 
 the road, the professor came into the coach, but 
 all we could say he would not accept of a seat to 
 be drawn forward ; for well did he like to crack 
 with a stranger, and Mr. Calderwood and he went 
 through all the English books, which he was 
 delighted with. The first time we changed horses, 
 we met an empty post-waggon returning to the 
 Hague ; we stopped, and their horses were put 
 into ours, and on we went without stopping five 
 minutes, for it is only taking out and putting in a 
 cleik, 1 for all the horses are yoked in together. 
 
 When we came to a ferry, we drove into the 
 
 boat and out without stirring ; when we changed 
 
 again, we drove into a stable, and the horses were 
 
 changed, and we drove out at the other end ; and 
 
 1 A hook.
 
 JOURNEY 107 
 
 when we changed for the last time, we stopped at 
 a very small village, the pleasantest ever I saw. It 
 was quite shaded with fine old trees, in the midst 
 of a wood, nothing like a street, but a few houses 
 built as it were on the road side, and all the trees 
 meeting above, so that it was almost quite dark. 
 Here we went into a house ; it was about four 
 o'clock, and we had travelled closs since eight. 
 We had a cold chicken with us, of which none of 
 them would partake, but called for a peice bread 
 and butter, with some thin slices of what they 
 call cumin caas laid on it, (which is cheese made of 
 skimed milk, mixed with different sorts of seeds, 
 which you buy for three half-pence a pound,) and 
 a drink of beer. We called for a bottle of claret, 
 which they took a glass of; but, when we asked 
 what was to pay, we were told nothing, and the 
 Burgomaster said very politly, that he had been 
 very handsomely [entertained] in England, and 
 that it gave him great pleasure to have an oppor- 
 tunity of showing he was sensible of it to any of 
 the British. When we told this again, it was said 
 to be the most wonderfull thing ever happened 
 from a Dutchman. 
 
 When we came near Harlem, there is a large 
 wood, all cut out in broad walls with vistos, which
 
 i o8 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 were vastly pretty, as each of them looked at the 
 end like the arch of a bridge, which you saw 
 through, the wood was so closs and so dark. 
 Most of them we passed terminated on the 
 Harlemer-mere, a large salt-water lake. 
 
 The Burgomaster ordered the driver to go off 
 the road, and drive into the wood to show it us, 
 which showed his authority; for, if a Dutch 
 driver was driving any king in Europe, he would 
 not budge out of his road for him. All the road 
 we came was planted on every side, and, as we 
 drew near to Harlem, there was a row of these 
 country houses I mentioned before on each 
 hand. 
 
 As we came through Harlem, it was Kearmas, 
 which is a great fair, which all the towns in 
 Holland hold once every year, and to which all 
 the merchandise of every part of Europe is drawn, 
 that is, to the great towns. In Amsterdam it 
 holds six weeks, in Rotterdam one week, and they 
 say is the greatest curiosity that can be seen ; a 
 collection of all nations, and the produce of every 
 nation, to an immense value. Harlem is not a 
 great town, so the Kearmas was not so fine, but 
 there were mountebanks and rope-dancers, and the 
 Lord knows what, and a vast crowd.
 
 JOURNEY 109 
 
 Harlem is a very pretty, gay-looking town, but 
 we did not stop at it. After we passed it, we saw 
 the cannall, which joins with a sluice to the 
 Harlemer-mer ; we asked if any attempts had 
 been made to drain that lake ; they said they had 
 land enough, and unless they had more inhabitants 
 the acquisition of land would only diminish the 
 value of what they had ; and that all the land 
 they had was dear of the upholding. Here all the 
 country and road was open, when before it was all 
 planted, which was a very pleasant variety. 
 
 When we came in sight of Amsterdam, and 
 Saardam, (which lies over a ferry of half an hour's 
 sailling, but looks to be very near,) it appeared 
 like a wood of wind-milns ; the road was quite 
 straight, and the cannall on one hand, with a great 
 many track-scoots constantly passing. 
 
 We arrived at Amsterdam about seven o'clock, 
 and when we came to the gate of the town, there 
 was waiting for our Burgomaster a most magnifi- 
 cent coach, with servants in laced liveries. He 
 offered to carry us to the inn, but we would not 
 accept, so the professor and he stepped in, and we 
 parted. Travelling in Holland, you see, is so 
 safe, and so easy, that this man, though he could
 
 no MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 very well affbard it, had neither his own coach 
 nor a servant with him ; it is just stepping in at 
 one town at a certain hour, and you can promise 
 to a minute when you will be at the next, without 
 ever stepping out of the voiture, unless you please. 
 But they say the Dutch are famous for the care 
 they take of their horses and their wives ; and, 
 indeed, it is very seldom you meet a gentleman's 
 coach upon the road, but all travell in stage 
 waggons. 
 
 So soon as we came in at the port, a man came up 
 to us driving a very droll machine. This was what 
 they call a trano> which is just the body of a coach 
 hirsleing l on its bare sole, and drawn by one horse 
 yoked with ropes, which a man walks a-foot and 
 drives, and holds it when it goes off the crown of 
 the casway, for then in [it] hirsles into the strand. 
 This is the best description I can give you of it, 
 for I often heard, that at Amsterdam they had 
 coaches without wheels, but I imagined there was 
 more machinery about them than I found. They 
 are very neat within, and glass, and just a coach 
 in every respect, but nothing more than the body. 
 They have, it seems, a great tax on wheels, whether 
 for shaking the town, which is all founded on piles, 
 
 1 Shuffling, scrambling.
 
 JOURNEY in 
 
 or not, I cannot tell, for these are the only carriages 
 used without wheels, more than in any other town. 
 
 If you want to have an idea of Amsterdam, you 
 will find it in the prophet Ezekeal, in his description 
 of her great-grandmother Tyre ; here all the riches 
 of both east and west are dayly pouring in. 
 
 I was not well the two days I stayed there, and 
 did not go about so much as I would, but Mr. 
 Calderwood went to see the granary of their spices, 
 which is prodigious ; but I went and saw the State- 
 house, and walked to see the finest streets. 
 
 The State-house you have seen a print of, and 
 very like it, but the inside and out together makes 
 it the most expensive building in Europe of modern 
 date, and, if you add, for profain use in opposition 
 to sacred, the first. It is founded on fourteen 
 thousand piles of wood ; it contains, below, the 
 prisons, the banks, the criminall court, and above, 
 the chambers for all the offices in the state, great 
 and small. At the door of every chamber is the 
 emblem of its use, carved in marble, and very finely 
 done; there is the fishery, with the nets so well 
 done that you think you see all the folds, as if you 
 saw through a great fishing net thrown in a heap : 
 all these chambers are as finely finished within. In 
 the criminall court are very fine emblems and
 
 ii2 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 examples of justice, with figures as large as the 
 life, representing shame and remorse, &c., vastly 
 well exequte. The outside of the building is all 
 of fine white stone, smooth, and ornamented with 
 pilasters and festouns, as within. On the timpony 
 behind and before are three statues ; Atlas carrying 
 the world on his shoulders, and others, which must 
 be very large, as they appear at that distance as 
 big as the life. But what looks very odd, in this 
 fine building there is no sash window, but all the 
 old leaded windows ; but I suppose they think it 
 has cost enough already, as it never was built for 
 three millions sterling. It requires a particular 
 order to see the bank, which we had neglected to 
 get ; there must be an immense quantity of silver 
 in it, as that is the only money, and almost every 
 farthing which belongs to any body is lodged there. 
 There are some of the principall streets that 
 from one end to the other are all fine houses, with 
 gardens behind them, and as you pass, each house 
 has a large gate with panes of glass, through which 
 you see the gardens behind, full of flowers and 
 statues, with walks and parterrs, all laid with shells 
 of various culours, or peices of glass like birds' 
 eggs of different culours, and laid in shapes which 
 appear like a rary-show box, when seen through
 
 JOURNEY 113 
 
 the glass gate. In these houses are contained 
 great estates in pictures, china, mirror and marble, 
 guildings, carvings, and statues, and japaned work, 
 besides silks, velvets and embrodery. We went to 
 see a china warehouse, where there was to the value 
 of at least 40,000 worth of chinas, Japan and 
 Saxon china; above stairs was all the fine, and 
 below all the common. I saw jars there as tall as 
 the Durham, of fine japaned china, five for a set, 
 of the shape of the largest I send you, for a hun- 
 dred gilders the set, which, if they were to sell in 
 Edinburgh, would be valued at 50 ; an hundred 
 gilders is ^9 sterling. The Saxon china was vastly 
 pretty, but most extravegantly dear ; I could not 
 get the smallest bit, such as a mustard dish, or any 
 little thing for curiosity, for less than twelve or 
 fifteen shillings. And there was a press, from top 
 to bottom full of the ornamental things, like 
 pagods, men on horses, and such noncence, all of 
 the Chinese figures, [so] that you would have 
 thought the whole Chinese empire had been 
 gathered together. Below was a prodigious quan- 
 tity of plates and dishes, turines, fruit baskets, and 
 salad basons, which are a square sort of bason, 
 very good for making salads. I did not see the 
 rasp-house, for they said it was a disagreeable 
 
 H
 
 ii 4 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 sight; this is where all the criminalls are condemned 
 to work for a term of years, at rasping down 
 the woods for dying, and other hard labour. 
 
 We lodged in the inn called the Morning Star, 
 the best in the town. There was a convention of 
 all nations, and it was quite full. There lodged 
 next room to us a lady and a gentleman, both 
 young folks : I went to the door one night to call 
 for something, when out came the man in the next 
 room, with his head finely curled and powdered, 
 his neck quite bare, a silk night-gown flowing 
 behind him, and a pipe in his cheek, I am sure 
 a yard long ; a very genteel young lad he was, 
 which I thought made his appearance the more 
 ridiculous ; but every man smoaks in Holland, 
 but none of the women. 
 
 In this inn the King of Prussia lodged, in his 
 travels through Holland incog ; he was three days 
 in Amsterdam, and nobody knew him. He had 
 but one gentleman with him. He bought a great 
 many flutes and other musicall instruments, and 
 when the landlord said to his servant, 
 
 c I think your master is very fond of musick," 
 
 c O yes,' says the servant, ' he is cheif musician 
 to the King of Poland.' 
 
 He travelled in the track-scoot, and there was a
 
 JOURNEY 115 
 
 gentleman's sons and their governour ; he turned 
 very fond of the governour, and they discoursed 
 about the memoirs l of the house of Brandenburgh, 
 and the governour gave his opinion of it and found 
 some faults, which the king defended. He, after 
 he left Holland, let this man know who he was, 
 and he has gone to pay him a visit. Severall of 
 his own officers saw him, and did not know him, 
 nor did his own embassador at the Hague. He 
 had his hair covered with a wigg, and a coat all 
 buttoned up about him. When he was going 
 away from Amsterdam, he bid the landlord get 
 him a coach; the landlord said he would get a 
 waggon or a phaeton, for nobody travelled in 
 coaches. When the waggon came to the door, he 
 said : 
 
 c That is a bad thing to travell in ; are there no 
 better to be had?' 
 
 ( The best people that comes to my house,' says 
 the landlord, f travells in it ; I have hired the same 
 machine for German counts, ay, for English lords, 
 and they never found fault with it, and I think it 
 
 1 These were the work of the Prussian king himself, 
 ' Memoires pour servir a 1'histoire de la maison Brandebourgh,' 
 which are comprised in ' Oeuvres de Frederic n. roi de Prusse, 
 publiees du vivant de PAuteur.' Tome I re , Berlin, 1789.
 
 n6 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 may serve you very well.' So the king stept 
 into it. 
 
 c Now,' says the landlord, f you sit like a king, 
 I think.' 
 
 He took some cold meat with him, and asked 
 for a napkin to wipe his hand. 
 
 f No,' says the landlord, f take just a sheet of 
 paper, that will serve the purpose as well.' 
 
 Very soon after he was gone, it came out that 
 he was the King of Prussia, and there was such 
 comparing of notes, what he had said, and what he 
 had done. The landlord sent him a present of 
 some cains, to which he returned him a very pretty 
 peice of silver-plate for the midle of a table, with 
 casters, etc., very finely wrought but very slight. 
 This present is keept in a fine carved box, which 
 the landlord sets down on a table, and there he 
 flourishes for a compleat hour in French, so fast 
 and with so many demonstrations, that it is enter- 
 taining even to those who do not understand a 
 word of it. 
 
 We were very sorry we could not get over to 
 Saardam, a town that lies on the other side the 
 water ; the wind was so that we could not go and 
 come home that night. It was here the .Czar 
 of Muscovy served his apprenticeship to a ship
 
 JOURNEY 117 
 
 carpenter. In that town there are seven hun- 
 dred wind-milns employed in different manu- 
 factories, and the people differ as much in 
 their looks, manners, and way of living, as if 
 they were not in the same country, and exceed 
 the Dutch in cleanliness as much as they do 
 other nations. Everywhere through the town 
 of Amsterdam there were garlands of flowers 
 hung out to show the herrings were come in, 
 and there were a vast number of large odd-like 
 boats, with all their masts hung with the goods 
 they have to sell ; these boats come down 
 the Rhine with goods, and the boats are sold 
 for timber. 
 
 At Amsterdam we forgathered again with 
 Messrs. Cookson, Webb and Bowles ; Mr. Webb 
 was bound for Geneva, and Bowles was to return 
 home. Webb was, I suppose, the same thing on 
 board the ship he was then, but it was then the 
 Englishman appeared, when he was compared with 
 others ; he wished to God most strongly that he 
 was at Geneva, I suppose that these travels might 
 be over his head. Mr. Cookson advised them to 
 stay another day, to go to Saardam. 
 
 c Has any of you a taste for mechanicks ? ' says 
 he ; * for, if you have, the variety of machinery you
 
 n8 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S JOURNEY 
 
 will see in these seven hundred wind-milns will 
 entertain you.' 
 
 ' O yes/ says they, f we love mechanicks, and 
 understand them.' 
 
 But, in the next breath, Webb declared that he 
 would not stay, unless to oblige Mr. Bowles, if he 
 wanted to go, for, damn him if he had seen any- 
 thing worth his while, or eat anything that was 
 good, since he had come to Holland, and wished to 
 God he was at Geneva, where, I suppose, he will 
 be as much disappointed as he had been before ; 
 yet I make no doubt but he will return from his 
 travells so much improved, as to despise every 
 thing in England as much as he does in every other 
 part of the world. 
 
 I find it is the truest way of obtaining to the 
 philosophical principle of dispising everything in 
 this world, first to send a young man abroad 
 to despise the continent, and then to bring him 
 back to despise his own island.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Preliminary Note: The ( Track-Scoot' : Aesthetics 
 of the Dutch : Extortion : Canal Scenes : 
 Fletcher of Salton and the Skiver : Church at 
 Targow : Post Waggon to Rotterdam : Loss of 
 the Guide book: BERGEN-OP-ZOOM : The siege 
 criticised: On to Antwerp: Characteristics of 
 Soph. John stone : The Bells of Antwerp : 
 Peggie from Edinburgh : Mass in the great 
 Church: Visit to the English Convent: A 
 Festival. 
 
 [THE only excision of any consequence that has 
 been deemed necessary in the revision of this narra- 
 tive occurs in this chapter. The cause of it is strik- 
 ing, and interesting; and lies in the intense bitterness 
 of expression which Mrs. Calderwood permits her- 
 self to employ with regard to everything connected 
 with Roman Catholic ritual which she now saw for 
 the first time. But it must be borne in mind that 
 she was separated by only one life from the horrors
 
 120 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 of the persecution in King James's reign, c the 
 killing time,' so forcibly described in that literature 
 to which her grandfather contributed ; in which, 
 according to Lord Macaulay, f ferocity and absur- 
 dity ' are the most prominent features. Mrs. 
 Calder wood's two cousins had attended the Rev. 
 Hugh M'Kaill, the martyr, their tutor, to the 
 place of his execution at the Cross of Edinburgh, 
 and there received his blessing ; and the elder of 
 the lads his Bible. 1 Her grandfather's sufferings, 
 inseparably associated with Popish pretensions, 
 were fresh in her memory. If Mrs. Calderwood's 
 outrageous expressions on this subject appear to 
 us to be in exceeding bad taste, and not what one 
 would expect from a gentlewoman of her culture 
 and kindly nature, the fact shows curiously how 
 far from being extinct, in her time, were the 
 rancorous feelings of the Covenanting age. ED.] 
 
 We had not yet travelled in the track-scoot, so 
 resolved to try it in returning to Rotterdam ; so 
 we got a trano to carry us to the scoot by seven 
 o'clock. We had before taken what they call 
 the rooff y which is a little place at the one end, 
 divided by a partition from the rest where all the 
 
 1 Sir Arch. Stewart's Mem., Coltness Colls., pp. 40, 41.
 
 JOURNEY 121 
 
 ordinary passengers sit. The whole boat is covered 
 above, and has windows that they open on each 
 side, and sit on each side of a long table where the 
 carles smoak, so that, when a scoot passes, you see 
 the smoak stoving l out at the windows ; and this 
 roof is like a little closet, with seats round it, and 
 plenty of cushions; if you incline to sleep, you 
 may lay yourself out on the bench at your ease. 
 It goes down with a step, which makes the door so 
 low, that if any body from without speaks to you, 
 they must sit down on their hungkers. 2 
 
 We were no sooner set, than comes the skipper 
 on his hungkers, with a long pipe in his mouth, 
 gabling a great deall, and pointing to another 
 trano. We understood that he wanted us to 
 admit some other passengers to the rooffl which we 
 had been forbid to do ; as, if you admit one, others 
 will demand the same, and then you are crowded 
 and smoaked to death, so that we declared none 
 should enter. When the skipper could not pre- 
 vail, there came a gentleman on his hungkers, 
 
 1 Steaming. 
 
 2 The position, sitting on one's hunkers ' is exactly that of 
 the natives of the East, who habitually sit squatting on their heels. 
 Still ' hunkers ' is never applied to any particular part of the 
 body so far as I am aware nor used at all except as in this 
 phrase.
 
 122 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 and, as he could speak French, he told he had a 
 wife, whom he begged we would admit ; so we 
 told him, if he would pay the half of the rooffl (for 
 there is no such thing as give and take amongst 
 the Dutch,) and would promise not to smoak, we 
 would admit him and his wife ; which he agreed 
 to, and so they came in. 
 
 This man looked like one of our ministers of a 
 middle age, but was not a clergyman ; his wife he 
 called his young feme, but she might be past thirty ; 
 our Maudy, laced in very strait stays, with less 
 sun-burnt complexion, would be very like her. 
 What is it about this woman, thinks I, that makes 
 her look so like a servant lass ? Is it her dress ? 
 No, it is not that, for she had on a very pretty 
 chince night-gown, a very good laced mob, her 
 hair snooded back and powdered, and a new yellow 
 callimanco pettycoat, twilted. 
 
 f That is it,' says I, c it is her snooded hair and 
 yellow pettycoat that gives her that look.' 
 
 She let down her gown, and put on a cap, which 
 hid these indications, but to no purpose ; she had 
 diamond rings, shoes with lace, a fine snuff-box, 
 but all would not do. She did not even turn like 
 a neat chambermaid, but just a servant lass, and if 
 it was owing to any thing but to her being a Dutch
 
 JOURNEY 123 
 
 woman, it was to her stays. The Dutch stays 
 contribute greatly to their vulgar look ; they run 
 in like a sand-glass below, and stand out round like 
 the same above ; they set their shoulders up to 
 their ears, and bring them forward as the landward 1 
 lasses do when they hold up their head. Then 
 they are quite even down in the back ; then they 
 all wear night-gowns closs before, and no aprons, 
 with round short hoops, all which makes them 
 very daft-like sights. 
 
 To make this voyage, we had carried some pro- 
 visions and a bottle of wine ; we stopped about 
 dinner time, and came into a house, and brought 
 the provisions with us. There was set behind a 
 table a great fat carle with a red face, and so short 
 necked that you would think he would worry 2 [at] 
 every word he spoke, with a high crowned hat, 
 and a long pipe in his mouth; he had standing 
 before him bread, butter, and cheese, and a long 
 stick like a spit, with peices of eels cut and stuck 
 upon it, and roasted. I could not imagine what 
 that was, it looked like peices of cheese, and came 
 
 1 Belonging to a rural district. 
 
 2 To worry, to strangle. The sentence on convicted witches 
 usually ran that they ' be worriet quhil [i.e. until] they be 
 deid.' Conf. Pitcairn's Ancient Criminal Trials.
 
 i2 4 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 near to touch it, at which the carle gave such a 
 gurll as made me jump. All these he sold to the 
 passengers ; I eat some of them with vinegar, which 
 were very good. 
 
 We afterwards eat our own provisions, and 
 drunk our wine ; but, when we came away, he 
 made us pay the price of them, as if they had been 
 his own, at which John was like to go craisy ; but 
 there was no help for it, for, if anybody challenge 
 a Dutch bill l they just make it double, and by 
 the law you must first pay that, and then pursue 
 for the imposition, for which they will be most 
 heartily souced. 
 
 When we returned to the boat again, we found 
 the Dutchman, our neighbour, had been wiser, for 
 he had a basket with some meat, but he did not 
 bring it in ; nor did he see ours till it was in the 
 house, otherways he would have told us. His 
 provisions consisted of things like little French 
 loaves, browned on the outside, but were composed 
 of minced veall, mixed with salt and spices, which 
 
 1 ' They are the Jews of the New Testament that have 
 changed only the Law for the Gospel. ... If you travel, 
 to ask a Bill of Particulars is to purre in a wasps' nest ; you 
 must pay what they ask as sure as if it were the assessment 
 of a Subsidy.' The Dutch drawn to the Life. London, 
 1664.
 
 JOURNEY 125 
 
 was very good ; they are made up in that shape, 
 and then sent and baked in the oven ; and this is a 
 great fare at Amsterdam ; for I saw folks always 
 passing on the street, with pails full of minced 
 meat, which I did not till then know the use of. 
 These loaves they put amongst their soup, or serve 
 them up with a sauce about them, or eat them cold, 
 for carrying with them in the track-scoot. 
 
 We came no further than Targow by water, 
 where we arrived about five at night. I do not 
 love the track-scoot, it is a very laizy way of 
 travelling, and you see very little about you, for, 
 in severall places, the reeds on the cannall sides are 
 so high that you cannot see well over them. All 
 the folks, as we came along, were carrying their 
 hay off the feild, and building it on boats for the 
 purpose, and severall great sows of hay were on the 
 cannall, drawn by one horse ; it looked very odd 
 to see a hay sow, perhaps fifty or sixty foot long, 
 broad in proportion but not so high, sailling along 
 with so many men sleeping on the top of it : 
 severall of them contained, as we could guess, 
 betwixt two and three thousand stone. Then there 
 were scoots loaded with peats as large, and others 
 loaded with baskets full of herbs. 
 
 When two scoots meet together, the one going
 
 126 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 to the greatest town has the preference ; the other 
 stops, and lets the rope of it slack, so as to drop 
 [into] the water, which the other sails over. When 
 the road alters from one side of the cannall to the 
 other, there is a bridge for the horses to go over, 
 and the mast to which the rope is tyed is let down 
 till it pass below. The rope is vastly long and 
 very small, so that the horses go so far before, that 
 though the mast be in the midst of the boat, and 
 [the rope] fixed to the top of the mast, yet the 
 boat steers in the midst of the cannall, and the 
 skipper's busness is to keep it streight in the water 
 by the helm. 
 
 They tell a story of old Fletcher of Salton and 
 a skipper : 
 
 Salton could not endure the smoak of toback, 
 and as he was in a night-scoot, the skipper and he 
 fell out about his forbidding him to smoak ; Salton, 
 finding he could not hinder him, went up and sat 
 on the ridge of the boat, which bows like an arch. 
 The skipper was so contentious that he followed 
 him, and, on whatever side Salton sat, he put his 
 pipe in the cheek next him, and whifed it in his 
 face ; Salton went down severall times, and brought 
 up stones in his pocket from the ballast, and slipt 
 them into the skipper's pocket that was next the
 
 JOURNEY 127 
 
 water, and when he found he had loadened him as 
 much as would sink him, he gives him a shove, so 
 that over he hirsled. The boat went on, and Salton 
 came down amongst the rest of the passengers, 
 who probably were asleep, and fell asleep amongst 
 the rest. In a little time bump came the scoot 
 against the side, on which they all damned the 
 skipper ; but, behold, when they called, there was 
 no skipper ; which would breed no great amase- 
 ment in a Dutch company. 1 
 
 There is nothing worth seeing at Targow but 
 the church, and that for the very fine paintings on 
 glass. The windows are fifteen or eighteen in 
 number, all of the small pained kind, joined with 
 lead, but made [so] as that that lead does not 
 obstruct the appearance of the figures of the 
 
 1 This was probably a tradition regarding Andrew Fletcher 
 of Salton, the celebrated politician and author, who was a fellow 
 exile in Holland with Mrs. Calderwood's grandfather. The 
 incident here narrated is paralleled by that mentioned by Lord 
 Macaulay as having occurred during Monmouth's invasion, 
 when Fletcher, under great provocation, shot dead one Dare, 
 an Englishman, who had ventured to shake a switch at him. 
 (See Hist, of England, vol. ii. p. 145.) Fletcher, who is described 
 as ' a low thin man of a brown complexion, full of fire, with a 
 stern sour look,' escaped to the Continent, overwhelmed with 
 remorse. His life and character have been well portrayed by 
 Mrs. Calderwood's nephew, David, 1 1 th Earl of Buchan.
 
 128 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 history peices, as large as the life, and very finely 
 done. Indeed it seems this church had been 
 brunt down, and built by collection, 1 and most of 
 the churches, states, and kings of Europe gave 
 these windows to ornament it, in the time of 
 popery. There is one of them given by Harry 
 the seventh of England. This town is very neat 
 and clean, like the rest, and has a fine large open 
 market place, but seems to have little repair, as 
 the grass is growing up betwixt the bricks in it ; but 
 they take great care to keep it down, by pouring 
 boiling water on it. Here I saw the largest mid- 
 den cock I think ever I saw, which I coveted, if I 
 could have known what to do with him. 
 
 From this we took our seats in the post-waggon 
 to Rotterdam, where we travelled on the top of a 
 dyke, paved with brick, and planted on each side, 
 which was very pretty ; but the brick pavement 
 made such a noise that it was very disagreeable. 
 There was only one passenger besides us ; a 
 youngish sort of lad, with a wigg as big as Lord 
 Milton's, 2 and a purple big coat down to his heels. 
 Says Mr. Calderwood 
 
 1 By subscription. 
 
 2 Andrew Fletcher (nephew of the politician), a Judge of the 
 Court of Session, the 'mild and judicious ' Lord Milton (see p. 78), 
 succeeded Lord Fountainhall in 1724, and died in 1766.
 
 JOURNEY 129 
 
 f I suppose this man is a Jew.' 
 
 c Well I wat,' says John, c he 's that ; if ever I 
 saw a Jew, he 's one/ 
 
 { You are both mistaken,' says I, f for I see by 
 that man's face he is a most pious Christian.' 
 
 We had, you may be sure, before this past, 
 found out he did not speak English. Mr. Cal- 
 derwood tryed him in French, but he could not ; 
 he then asked him if he could speak Latin, which 
 he could, and upon examination, the poor man 
 was so far from being a Jew, that he was a young 
 divine. 
 
 We once intended to return by Utrecht, but by 
 that time had become so impatient for letters, that 
 we took the shortest way to Rotterdam. There 
 we stayed eight days, still waiting for letters, but 
 got none, so we set out on the i6th July for Spaw. 
 
 Every thing is dear in Holland but East India 
 goods and charity ; a beggar is well satisfied with 
 a doit, which is the fourth part of a halfpenny, 
 and 1 beleive our beggars judged ill in destroying 
 the doits, for every body gives, and doits come to 
 a great deall. There is two of the corners at 
 Rotterdam that the ramparts are not joined by 
 bridges, and there is a boat by which you are 
 
 ferried over for a doit, and these two-doit boats 
 
 i
 
 130 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 bring into the town's treasury near a hundred 
 pound sterling per annum each. 
 
 There you may drink tea if you please, for I 
 never passed it at any time that the boatman had 
 not his tea-kettle boilling on a choffer, and his tea 
 equipage set out. I often had a curiosity to taste 
 the tea, but the water in the cannall, out of which it 
 was filled, looked so naisty, that I durst not venture. 
 
 When we set out from Rotterdam, it was in a 
 phaeton from the other side of the Maes, which 
 carried us to Moordyke, which is a ferry as broad 
 as the Queens-ferry, or more. It is that water 
 which in the map is called Holland's Diepe. 
 One man managed the scoot which sailled, and by 
 a ring, which run from one side of the boat to the 
 other on an iron rod, performed in a moment the 
 operation of tacking, which makes such a disturb- 
 ance in a Kinghorn boat. The man could speak 
 a little English, and showed us where the Prince 
 of Orange was drowned, 1 by crossing this ferry, 
 
 1 Prince John William Friso of Nassau was named sole heir of 
 the estates of King William in. He was a General of the States' 
 infantry before he was twenty, and did good service at the 
 battle of Malplaquet in 1 709 ; and was drowned in the manner 
 described, two years afterwards. See DAVIES'S History of 
 Holland t vol. iii. pp. 256-319.
 
 JOURNEY 131 
 
 siting in his coach, with his horses yoked ; and 
 above, where the seventy-two towns and villages 
 were overflowed 1 in one night, and never recovered, 
 which is now called Druken-land. 
 
 When we came to the other side of this ferry, 
 we took another phaeton, and there John dis- 
 covered that he had lost a guide he every moment 
 consulted, called C A Tour through the Low 
 Countries.' 2 This book had jolted out of his 
 pocket in the last phaeton, and was not to be 
 recovered, at which he was almost inconsolable. 
 
 We had at that time the warmest weather ever 
 I felt, and all the road we had to travell was a dead 
 sandy desart, covered with a poor strunty heather 
 and a good deall of oak wood. We might either 
 go by Bruxells, or by Bergen-op-Zoom ; I was 
 strongly for the last, as I was curious to see a place 
 I had heard so much of. We dined at a small inn 
 
 1 In 1421 the sea broke in at Dort and overwhelmed 72 
 villages with 100,000 inhabitants. 
 
 2 This in all probability was the journal, so entitled, of 
 Principal Carstares, one of the most distinguished of the Whig 
 exiles in Holland. His mother, Jean Mure, of the family of 
 Glanderstone, was a connection of the Steuarts of Coltness. 
 The MS. of the 'Tour,' dated 1685, was given by Carstares to 
 his cousin, Mure of Caldwell ; and it is not unlikely that a copy 
 may have been made and used by the party as a hand-book. 
 See Caldwell Papers, Part i.
 
 132 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 on the road, where our driver sat down at the same 
 table with us, and his hat on, and eat his brown 
 bread and cheese. The master of this house had 
 in his garden three score of bees' scapes, all set on 
 the ground, with the entry in the midst of the 
 scape. They were made very high and narrow, 
 and just sticked as we do ; the hole in the middle is 
 the best way to preserve them from the mice : the 
 large ones had two entries, a first and second story. 
 
 All the afternoon we travelled through the same 
 barren country, with neither house nor town : if 
 that happens to any body in Scotland, it is sure to 
 be recorded as an instance of the barrenness of the 
 country, so I shall record it of a country famous 
 for its fertility and populousness. 
 
 The first town of any note we came to was Wow, 
 which, well do I remember in the newspapers, was 
 Marshall Lowandall's 1 head-quarters at the seige 
 
 1 The Danish Count Lowendahl was lieutenant to Marshal 
 Saxe in the service of France. On the 28th July 1747, Horace 
 Walpole writes : ' Bergen-op-Zoom is the first place that 
 has not said yes the moment the French asked the question.' 
 (Letters, ii. 92.) The progress of the siege was followed with 
 intense interest in England, as shown by Walpole's correspond- 
 ence. He mentions also the scurrilous prints and squibs, levelled 
 at Count Lowendahl and Marshal Saxe, which appeared in 
 Holland at this time.
 
 JOURNEY 133 
 
 of Bergen, and is within what we would call a mile, 
 and the French lines were extended from the left 
 of that, round the one-half of the town. It was 
 so late when we arrived at Bergen, that we had 
 not time to walk round the ramparts, and next 
 morning it was so intolerably hot, that it was 
 impossible. We had seen a good part of it 
 in coming in, as we passed three guards and as 
 many draw-bridges, which were all fortifications 
 within others. 
 
 We went only to that side where the French 
 came in, and I must own I think a fortified town 
 is nonsense; for they take an army to defend 
 them, which, if the enemy by stratagem or 
 fraud disappoint the vigilance of, then that 
 army is catched in a trap ; and if the enemy get 
 hold but of one small part of the fortification, 
 it becomes as usefull to him for taking the 
 rest, as it does to those who defended ; and if you 
 have an army sufficient to defend every inch, 
 I should think that army as able to fight in a 
 fair feild; and there is no courage nor conduct 
 tried, but whoever has the best ingeneers and 
 cannon gains the point. 
 
 Had I seen Bergen before I saw London, I 
 might have gained what money I pleased, by lay-
 
 134 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 ing against the beseiged in St. Philips, 1 for the 
 English had not the least fear of its being taken. 
 The case with Bergen was, the French got hold of 
 one of the lunets y and that gained them all the rest. 2 
 There is no appearance of the French camp having 
 been there, though the feilds about are all a plain 
 muir ; but, as the ground is sand, the trenches soon 
 fill up. All that part of the town which was hurt 
 by the seige is now rebuilt, and all the fortifications 
 made up, but it is easy to see the old brick-work 
 from the new by the cullour : I cannot say but it 
 looked droll to me to see a town fortified with 
 brick. There are now trees planted on the ram- 
 parts, and every thing in very good order. 
 
 We travelled all the next day through much the 
 same country (very bad for subsisting an army, 
 
 1 Intelligence of the surrender of the Forts of Mahon and 
 St. Philip, in Minorca, by General Blakeney, did not reach 
 London till the I5th or 1 7th July, and was not published in 
 the London Gazette till the 24th, some time after the departure 
 of the Calderwood party. 
 
 2 'For eight weeks the besieged withstood a perpetual 
 bombardment, and assaults without number, . . . until by the 
 negligence or insufficiency of the guard at one of the breaches 
 the assailants were enabled to enter during the night and carry 
 the town by surprise on the i6th Sept. 1747.' DAVIES'S Hist, 
 of Holland, vol. Hi. p. 370.
 
 JOURNEY 135 
 
 for it produces nothing), till in the evening we 
 came in sight of Antwerp ; then the country was 
 very good, and pretty and populous. The only 
 grain which grew on the barren ground was buck- 
 wheat and rye, and some barly, which was ripe, 
 and was cutting-down. The harvest was going on 
 about Antwerp likeways, that is the barly, but 
 every other grain was quite green ; it is a sort of 
 winter barly that is ripe so soon, for there was 
 other barly green. They had a sort of hook for 
 cutting, like a little sithe, but they used it above 
 the hand, instead of below, and took the corn by 
 the head with one hand, and came hash, hash down 
 upon it with the other, and drew it together with 
 the sithe, which was shaped like a hook, but not 
 so much hooked. They likeways sow a great deall 
 of rape, which they were cutting, and thrashed in 
 the feild. The country was very pretty all upon 
 the Scheld, but quite flat ; it is now inclosed, and 
 all the towns and villages are planted, which makes 
 a pretty variety. 
 
 We got to Antwerp about seven at night, after 
 a very hot day. Our driver did not know the 
 road to the inn, so that he first drove us through 
 most of the streets of the town, which are a great 
 many and very good ; but the want of sash windows
 
 136 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 looked very odd, and then all the low stories are 
 railled with iron, which looked very prison-like, 
 and this is the case with all the finest towns in the 
 Low Countries. Antwerp was once what Amster- 
 dam is now, and the river was so crowded, that for 
 three leagues down, a ship could hardly get up for 
 others, but now there is almost none ; but still it 
 has the air of decayed nobility, and what they 
 want in trade, they make up in religion, for they 
 are the maddest ideots about papistry that ever was. 
 The barrier of every country is the strongest to 
 hold out the enemy ; now Antwerp is the barrier 
 of popery, for it is the first town of any note you 
 come to of that religion. 
 
 Nobody could tell me how many convents were 
 in it, but there are two or three in every street ; 
 and for Virgin Maries, I beleive there are as many 
 as there are virgins of flesh and blood in the town, 
 for, on the corner of every house, on the turn of 
 every street, on every well, on every shop door, 
 stood a Virgin under a canopy, some finely dressed, 
 and some very dirty, with old callicoe gowns and 
 cloaks about her. I was seized with that sort of 
 impatience Soph takes when any thing is too often 
 repeated, and I took such a desire to have Soph 
 with me, that I laughed at what she would say. I
 
 JOURNEY 137 
 
 thought I heard her crying, f Take her out of my 
 sight, or I '11 go mad ; there she is again, O ! Sirs, 
 what will I do ! ' Well, I think I would have 
 given all the clothes on my back to have had Soph l 
 with me at Antwerp, that she might have gone 
 clean daft ; for there begane the bells to ring, and 
 if they ceased one quarter of an hour day and 
 night, may I be hanged ! I 'm in passion yet, 
 when I think upon them, for it was a vastly hot 
 
 1 This was the famed Soph. Johnstone of the now extinct 
 family of Hilton, a queen among the old Scotch eccentrics. 
 ' There was an original ! ' says Lord Cockburn, who when he 
 was a boy saw her at Niddrie ; she was then, he says, about 60, 
 and adds, ' it was not till after she became a woman that she 
 taught herself to read and write, and then she read incessantly.' 
 Her father, ' an old dog/ writes Lady Anne Barnard, the special 
 friend of Soph., had strong views regarding ' the folly of educa- 
 tion,' and gave her none. ' Nature,' says Lady Anne, ' seemed 
 to have in jest hesitated to the last whether to make her a boy 
 or a girl.' She wrestled with the stable boys, worked well 
 at carpentry and in iron, and could shoe a horse quicker than 
 the smith. She played the fiddle well, and sang in the bass 
 voice of a man many thought she was one 
 ' Eh ! quo' the tod, it 's a braw light night, 
 The wind's i' the wast and the moon shines bright.' 
 
 Soph. Johnstone came to Balcarres on a visit of a few months ; 
 and stayed thirteen years Lives of the Lindsays, ii. 316. In 
 her long great-coat and man's hat, as Lord Cockburn remembered 
 her, she was a striking figure. * Her talk,' he says, ' was intel- 
 ligent and racy ; all her opinions free, and freely expressed.' 
 Memorials of his Time, pp. 60-6 1.
 
 138 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 night, and there came on thunder, and to the 
 bells they went with a vengence. You may only 
 judge what it was, when I tell you, in the principall 
 steeple of the town, which is a very fine peice of 
 workmanship, there are no less than two hundred 
 bells, the largest seven foot diameter, and every 
 church and convent numbers in proportion. To 
 sleep was impossible : had they rung on, it would 
 have been tolerable, but they would all stop for a 
 little, and to it again, as if the devil had possessed 
 them. We had been up very early ; Mr. Calder- 
 wood was fatigued with the heat and the journey ; 
 the night was so hot that we were like to die ; he 
 could not sleep for the bells ; so that I did pray 
 heartily for the Papists. 
 
 I found in the inn a girl born in Edinburgh, 
 called Peggie; her father had been a Picardy 
 weaver, and her parents being dead, her uncle sent 
 for her when she was twelve years old, and brought 
 her to Antwerp. Peggie had almost lost her 
 English, but her serving in the inn keept her a 
 little in mind of it. She was transported when she 
 found I had come from Edinburgh. She had 
 changed her religion, but did not seem to know 
 much about the matter ; she said she thought she 
 was as well with the religion of Edinburgh ; but
 
 JOURNEY 139 
 
 her uncle was a catholick, and everybody was 
 catholick, and she could not think of keeping the 
 religion of Edinburgh, when nobody else had it. 
 
 e So,' says I, c and you leave Edinburgh, and 
 the first thing you do is to send all your old freinds 
 to the devil.' 
 
 ' O ! Madam, Lord forbid ! the folks in Edin- 
 burgh are very good.' 
 
 c But,' says I, ( the catholicks say they will go 
 to hell.' 
 
 That she would not allow, and said they had 
 severall fashions she did not like ; she wished they 
 would put confession out of fashion, but O ! the 
 procession and the mass was fine. 
 
 Next day being Sunday, I went to mass in the 
 great church ; and, when I went in, saw the folks 
 all about the door, and in the body of the church, 
 sitting on their knees here and there, laying up 
 their lugs and mumbling, some, like Bessie's man, 
 at their privat devotions, looking over their 
 shoulders at me ; others sitting putting their 
 noses through the iron raills of a chapel in which 
 nobody was, and very few folks near, the preist 
 who was saying mass, looking very droll. I found 
 there was nothing to be seen in the church but 
 privat devotion, but heard fine musick going on
 
 1 40 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 in the queir; so in I pushed to that, and there 
 was a fine show, for it was a high mass. There 
 was a fine concert of vocal and other musick, and 
 a fine organ. Next to the door, with their back 
 to it, were set two preists on the same stool, which 
 put me in mind of the two kings of Brentfoord ; 
 they were dressed in robes of gold and silver 
 brocade. On each side of the queir sat the monks 
 to which the church belonged, who were white Car- 
 melites, twelve on every side, and as many other 
 black or brown friars, who had come to assist them, 
 and twelve black on each side. At the altar stood 
 three preists, dressed in robes of brocade, and 
 behind them three in white musline shirts, down to 
 their heels, with broad old points about the taill. 
 The preist in the middle was performing the mass, 
 with many bows and kneelings. There was a 
 door on each side of the altar, at which the people 
 that served went out and in with different things ; 
 one brought a brocaded mantel, and put it on the 
 acting preist; then he performed some anticks, 
 and then they took it off and folded it up ; 
 then they brought two candles, and put them in 
 one of the musline preist's hands, and then the 
 middle preist took a book, and laid [it] on the 
 same preist's face, and made him a reading-dask,
 
 JOURNEY 141 
 
 with the two candles supporting the book, and he 
 read. Then one went about to perfume us all 
 with incence, came down the one side of the queir 
 and up the other, and gave every one of the white 
 and black friars so many puffs of the incence, out 
 of a thing like a lamp, and they held out their 
 noses to receive it. I keeped my eye on a gentle- 
 man next me, who I saw was not over fond of 
 kneeling, for most of the audience were on their 
 knees the whole time, and when this man kneeled, 
 so did I, which was only in cases of necessity, that 
 is, when a boy who served at the altar rung a bell 
 at the elevation of the Hosty. 
 
 After I came out of the church, we went to see 
 what they call the Holy Grave. This is a place 
 cut out of a rock, in imitation of the holy 
 sepulcher. There our Saviour is cut in stone, 
 lying; then there is the angel sitting where he 
 lay, informing the two women, (who are painted 
 on a board, peeping in at the door,) that he was 
 risen from the dead. The man who showed it was 
 at great pains to inform us that this was not the 
 thing in reality, but the representation of it, which 
 I was very willing to beleive. Near this place 
 was purgatory, which was a large cavy. Now, I
 
 i 4 2 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 will wager, you never knew before what like 
 purgatory was ; well, it is just like a cavy, full of 
 men, instead of hens, and red painted sticks, by 
 way of flames, standing up amongst them, and one 
 of them has his hand through the spokes, begging 
 money from the passengers, for to give the preist 
 to say mass for his soul ; for you must know that 
 you may remain in purgatory to all eternity, unless 
 you pay for a mass, for there is no such a thing 
 as a mass gratis. For the first principle of the 
 true catholick church is to take all and give 
 nothing ; and that these orders, who have devoted 
 their lives to prayer, never through the whole year 
 say one mass that is not payed for, either for the 
 dead by the living, or mortified * by some body, 
 so much money for so many masses. Indeed, 
 they are not dear, for you will get as many said 
 for you as you please for a skilling Flemish (which 
 is like our half merk) each. 
 
 After I came from this place, I went to call 
 at an English convent of nuns; I was resolved 
 to see a convent, and choised this rather than 
 another, because I could speak to them. It was 
 about one o'clock, and [I] was told they were 
 
 1 In Scotland a ' mortification ' is a bequest for a charitable 
 or similar purpose.
 
 JOURNEY 143 
 
 laid down to sleep after their dinner, but if I 
 should return at night about eight I would see 
 them ; so I left the compliments of a country- 
 woman to the Lady abbess, and that I would 
 return in the evening, and pay my respects to 
 her. Her name is Howard, and all the nuns 
 are English, of the order of the Recolly, who 
 are but a degree above the Capucines for strick- 
 ness. 
 
 When I came in the evening, the nuns were in 
 a place off the chapel at vespers ; it was divided 
 from the chapel by a grate and curtain : the chapel 
 was open, and I went in ; it was very neat, and I 
 heard them singing, but had no reason to admire 
 their musick. After this was over, I was bid come 
 up stairs, and went into a small room [where] there 
 was a grate, and on the other side of that was 
 another room, into which two nuns came. I 
 addressed myself to them, supposing one to be the 
 abbess, but they told me she was sick, and that 
 they were sent by her to receive me. I told them 
 I was lately come from England, that I had never 
 seen a convent, and choised to pay my respects 
 to them, as, by the name of the Lady abbess, I 
 fancied I was acquainted with some of their friends. 
 One of the nuns told me she was neice to the
 
 144 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 abbess, and sister to Mr. Howard of Corbie. I 
 told her I knew Mrs. Warwick, 1 her sister, and Mr. 
 Howard of Greystock, 2 and severall others of her 
 freinds ; but I found she did not seem to care 
 much about them, said it was near a year since she 
 heard from her sister, and we chated half an hour. 
 
 They were dressed in the coarsest brown cloath 
 ever you saw, and had a great cloth vaill over 
 their faces, through which they could not so much 
 as see daylight. Of all the days ever I felt that 
 was the hottest, and to see them stoving beneath 
 that vaill, when I was gasping for breath in the 
 open air, made my heart sore for them. I asked 
 them if they did not find their dress very hot ? 
 
 c O yes ! ' they said, { it was very bad in summer, 
 but very comfortable in winter.' 
 
 I asked them to take up their vaill, but they 
 said it was not permitted them, unless the abbess 
 was present to order them ; and that, unless it was 
 to their nearest relations, they never took it off. 
 They said they never wore it but when they came 
 to the speak-room. 
 
 1 Jane, second daughter of Thomas Howard, Esq. of Corby 
 Castle, co. Cumberland, married Francis Warwick, Esq. of 
 Warwick Hall in the same county. 
 
 2 Charles Howard, Esq. of Greystoke, father of Charles 
 Howard who succeeded as loth Duke of Norfolk.
 
 JOURNEY 145 
 
 By the time I took my leave, there was still a 
 more curious show preparing ; this was a procession 
 to which the whole town was gathered. The cross 
 in the market-place was dressed up, and an altar 
 erected ; orange trees in pots were brought, carried 
 by two men, with musick playing before them. 
 When all that was prepared, there came a set of 
 musick, trumpets, hoiboys, and French horns. 
 They were followed by a cavalcat of white monks, 
 then black monks, and brown monks, and God 
 knows what. Then came the shrine of the blessed 
 Virgin, which is a peice of brocade fixed to the 
 end of a pole, in the shape of a dragon 1 the boys 
 let fly. Then came the Virgin herself, under a 
 canopy carried by four preists ; she is made of 
 silver, and dressed in a robe-de-chambre of scarlet 
 and gold ; the babe in her arms has on a cloak of 
 the same. She cogled terribly, and I thought 
 every minute she would fall ; and if she had, some- 
 body would have got a broken crown, for she was 
 very massy, and almost as tall as Bess. 
 
 After her came four men, supporting a canopy 
 
 of crimson velvet, embroidered with gold, like the 
 
 rooff of a bed, and under it was the preist, with 
 
 the chaleice in his hand, in which was the Hosty. 
 
 1 Kite. 
 
 K
 
 i 4 6 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 You have seen a thing like a little clock-case for 
 putting a watch in, and nailed to the wall of a 
 room ; well, the chaleice is just like that, only it 
 stands on a stalk, and the wafer, about the large- 
 ness of a bisquit, with a crucifix stamped on it, 
 looks out at the open, like the dial-plate of the 
 watch ; and whenever that is held up, a bell rings, 
 which a little boy carries, and then everybody 
 down on their knees. 
 
 On every altar there is one of those things in 
 a fine little cabinet, which opens with two doors. 
 Whenever the preist opens this thing, clap they 
 come down, like c pass, Jack, and begone ; ' and 
 likeways when the preist takes this out of the 
 cabinet and holds it up. This case the preist held 
 in his hand, and marched up and set it on the 
 altar ; down we must all upon our knees. It was 
 devilish hard to me to kneel on the street, but the 
 papaist knees are certainly shod with iron ; I put 
 down first one knee, and then another, for, as ill 
 luck would have it, it was so warm that I had 
 thrown off all but one pittecoat ; but the men, who 
 had nothing but their stockings, will kneel as long 
 as you please. 
 
 The first body I observed rise, I followed their 
 example, but a very zelous talior (for you must
 
 JOURNEY 147 
 
 know I am turned a great phiseognemest, and 
 knows every body's trade and character by their 
 faces) took me by the gown-taill to make me get 
 down again ; but some others near him boasted 1 
 him for it, so I stood still. After they had per- 
 formed certain ceremonies there, off they went in 
 procession again to another part of the town. A 
 great many substantiall burgars carried wax tapers 
 in their hands ; one side of the street prepares the 
 candles one day, and the other next. 
 
 Least I forget to tell you how to secure your 
 house against thunder, as there was a great deall 
 that day, every one had a fine carved wax candle, 
 which had been blessed in the church, lighted in 
 their house, and to that, and to the bells, was owing 
 that the thunder did no harm. 
 
 I could get nobody to tell me for what the pro- 
 cession was ; some said one thing, some another, 
 and Edinburgh Peggie said it was that silver 
 Virgin's birth-day ; but a driver, whom we got 
 next day, said the Virgin had run in debt, and she 
 was going about begging, but his religion had been 
 a little shaken by his being a baggage driver to 
 
 1 Boist, boast, to threaten or endeavour to frighten. Thus 
 of an evil-doer it is recorded that he ' boisted the said scherrif 
 with ane kuyfF.'
 
 148 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S JOURNEY 
 
 the English army, for I found since, it was the 
 day of the patron of the town, and the first day of 
 the Kearmes, which every town celebrates with a 
 procession. However, I suppose the Virgin is 
 guilty of borrowing money, and she is furthcomeing 
 for a good deall, as her guardians will get severall 
 tuns of good wine upon her credit. 
 
 Here we met again with our fellow traveller 
 Mr. Cookson, who was staying with some freinds 
 he had in the place ; we desired him to dine with 
 us, which he could not do, but fain would he, for 
 the meagure days were very hard upon him. He 
 told us the folks he lived with, he was bred up 
 with when young, that he could use all freedome, 
 and had begged them to give him a bit of flesh, 
 but they said they could not be witness to his 
 eating ; he expostulated that it was no sin in him, 
 but to no purpose.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Preliminary Note : Antwerp to I'irlemont : Jesuits' 
 College at Louvaine : Roman Catholic Educa- 
 tion : Difficulties for Protestant boys : MR. 
 NEEDHAM and Young 'Townley : Liege and 
 Edinburgh compared : ' Trifoncias ' : Johnston 
 a Scotch impostor: Gordon of Cowbairdy at 
 Liege : 'The Jesuits' College : Father Blair : 
 Father Daniel and his Opinions : Mrs. Calder- 
 wood's views of the Papacy : Field of Rocoux : 
 Meeting with SIR JAMES STEUART : Coal 
 Mines of Liege. 
 
 [ONE of the most picturesque incidents of modern 
 history is that of the Queen Maria Theresa, beset 
 on all sides by enemies clamouring for a portion 
 of the kingdom left to her by her father Charles 
 vi., suddenly appearing in the midst of her faithful 
 Hungarians, her infant son in her arms, to call 
 upon them for help. Having brought together the 
 Hungarian Diet she met them, dressed in black, 
 the crown on her head and the sword bv her side ;
 
 150 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 and addressed them in soul-stirring words of 
 Latin ; and was answered with the cry, c Vitam 
 et sanguinem consecravamus.' 1 The Esterhazys, 
 Palfys (after mentioned), and others of the nobility, 
 devoted themselves to her service. Charles vn., 
 who had declared himself Emperor of Austria, 
 died in 1745, when the husband of Queen Maria 
 Theresa, Francis, Duke of Lorraine, was elected 
 Emperor as Francis i. The peace of Aix-la- 
 Chapelle in 1748 closed the war in which France 
 had been opposed to Austria in the Austrian 
 Netherlands ; and for a time Maria Theresa ruled in 
 quietness. Hitherto Great Britain had supported 
 her cause, but in 1755 sided with Prussia on the 
 Emperor declining to help the British in their 
 struggle with France in America. 2 In the summer 
 of 1756 the c Seven Years' War' began, but it was 
 waged chiefly in the centre of Europe.- ED.] 
 
 We left Antwerp upon Monday the I9th of 
 July, and came that night to Tirlemont, break- 
 fasted at Mechlin, and dined at St. Tron. All 
 these towns are full of convents and monastries ; 
 
 1 Frederick the Great and Maria Theresa by the Due de 
 Broglie. Lond. 1883. Vol. ii. p. 42. 
 
 2 See p. 202, ante.
 
 JOURNEY 151 
 
 the Mechlin lace is all made in them, and I saw a 
 great deall very pretty and very cheap. They 
 talk of giving up the trade, as the English, upon 
 whom they depended, have all come into the 
 wearing the French blonds. The lace merchants 
 employ the workers, and all the town works lace, 
 though they gain but about twopence halfpenny 
 per day : it is a good worker will work a Flemish 
 yard, which is twenty-eight inches, in a fortnight. 
 The holydays play the sorrow with the poor 
 people ; there are now a great many cut off, but 
 the present generation are like ours with the new 
 stile, they cannot be brought to forbear observing 
 their old customes : so, as long as the church keeps 
 the particular service for these days, the people will 
 never work upon them. 
 
 We hired a coach from Antwerp with a pair 
 of horses, and had it for eightpence a mile ; we 
 travelled with that pair thirty-one miles a day. 
 The road is very good ; it is a causaway in the 
 middle, and a soft road on every side, and planted 
 with fine trees till you come near Tirlemont, where 
 the French have not left a stick. After you come 
 on the Prince of Liege's territories, the trees are 
 standing, as they did him no harm, but all the 
 Queen's territories bear the marks of them, where-
 
 152 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 ever they came, by having the trees cut down. In 
 this day's journey we past through Louvaine, which 
 is likeways dismantled of the fine trees which 
 covered the road to every hand. 
 
 At Louvaine, all the youth of these countries 
 are educated, after they have passed the Latin 
 schools. The Jesuits' col ledge there is [for] 
 philosophy ; some are humanity colledges ; some 
 philosophy. But all the youth are educated by the 
 Jesuits, who are the men of best sense and best 
 scholars in the church, and teach for nothing ; and 
 in these humanity l colledges they begin them with 
 the rudiments, and highest and lowest of them 
 take their turn, and labour with the boys like any 
 country schoolmaster : one class will have eighty 
 or ninety in it. They make the boys in the low 
 classes act plays in French, and the higher in Latin. 
 All the classes enter from a square court, with 
 benches round it, and in the corner of it is a place 
 for the prefect of the studies to sit, and see them 
 gather and dismiss, and to see that none goes out, 
 and that good order is keeped. 
 
 Since I have mentioned this, I shall give you an 
 account of the meathod of education in all Roman 
 
 1 The study of Latin in a Scots University, under a Professor 
 bumaniorum literarum, is so styled.
 
 JOURNEY 153 
 
 catholick countries, which is on a much better 
 footing than we at home imagine, both for boys 
 and girls. For the girls, they are boarded in a 
 convent, where they are taught every thing that 
 can be thought of, and keeped there till sixteen 
 or seventeen, or just as their parents please. 
 There is no such thing as girls running about 
 giddy at their own hand, as they are never 
 allowed to go to the publick places, unless under 
 their parents' eye, or somebody that has the 
 charge of them, and commonly stay in the con- 
 vent till they are married. That is, the people 
 of fashion ; and for the burghers, they take them 
 home, and make them assist at their busness. 
 
 As for the boys of fashion, they are first sent 
 to a private school to learn to read ; if they are 
 come from the country, they are boarded in 
 what they call a pension, or have a private tutor 
 to teach them. After that, and [when] they 
 begin Latin, they are put in a pension, and 
 either the master who keeps that pension teaches 
 them the Latin, or they go to a humanity col- 
 ledge of the Jesuits, and the master who keeps 
 the pension assists them in their vacant hours, 
 dines with them, walks with them, and never 
 loses sight of them. If the colledge takes in
 
 154 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 pensioners, which in some places they do, then 
 every class is under a particular master, who has 
 the constant charge of them. Every two have 
 a room, and every one a bed, a chair and table, 
 and a place for their clothes ; and a lay brother 
 to attend perhaps four, to comb their hair, wash 
 them, and take care of their clothes. They rise 
 at five o'clock in summer, and six in winter, have 
 a morning school, then breakfast, dine at twelve, 
 and go to school at one, and dismiss at four, 
 betwixt ten and eleven go to mass, sup at six, 
 and to bed at eight; [have] gardens to play in, 
 and the masters always with them. 
 
 Then some will have another father, whom he 
 pays as a tutor to assist him, or perhaps an elder 
 scholar, to help him with his lesson against next 
 day ; some has a tutor of his own boarded in the 
 colledge with him : at the same time, they have 
 masters for writing, dancing, and arithmetick, 
 come in to them, and there must be nothing but 
 the best behaviour and decency to one another, as 
 they are always before the masters. They dine at 
 a publick table, where one of the fathers, besides 
 the one who is the master, dines with them. 
 
 This colledge brings them through the Latin, 
 and when they are ready for philosophy, they go
 
 JOURNEY 155 
 
 to another colledge, perhaps in a different place, 
 where the same order is observed. They carry 
 them from class to class, as high as learning of 
 all kinds can go. The youth who are not for 
 the church go only to certain classes, and then 
 go to the academy. The students for the church 
 must study for thirteen years ; they may be 
 admitted, and often are, into the society of 
 Jesuits, long before their studies are finished, and 
 take the habit, and are called fathers; but till 
 that time they are only students, and are not 
 permitted to teach. When that time is out, then 
 they are professors in their turn of any science 
 as it happens, and either remain in that colledge, 
 or go to some other, as the superintendant of 
 the province pleases to order. Every colledge 
 has a father rector, to whom they pay intire 
 obedience, and the superintendant is over every 
 colledge of that province. In this country all 
 the students, as I told you, go to Louvaine ; 
 at present there are above three thousand 
 students. 
 
 The young gentlemen, again, after they have 
 passed the common course at both colledges, go 
 to an academy ; there they are confined still to 
 hours of dining, supping, and being at home.
 
 156 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 They dine altogether, and pay like about 
 per annum for meat and lodging ; the different 
 masters are paid apart : for this they have only 
 riding. There are masters for dancing, fenc- 
 ing, musick, drawing, mathematicks, geography, 
 fortification, etc. By this time they are come to 
 one or two and twenty, and are their own masters. 
 This is a much better method and footing than 
 the education in Britain, where every one is left to 
 learn or not, to behave well or ill, as he pleases. 
 They are all the time of their studies under a sort 
 of monastic life, and under no temptation to vice 
 and idleness. But then one of our country must 
 not be catched with this, and say, c O ! we will 
 send our sons abroad, there is no education like 
 the foreign.' They must consider that in very few 
 circumstances protestants can reap the benefit of 
 this ; for, if a boy is sent either to a colledge where 
 he can be pensioned, or a house where he is pen- 
 sioned and goes to the colledge, he loses both his 
 English and his religion. 
 
 In a pension house, which is commonly kept by 
 a preist, (as no man of any other profession can 
 dedicate his time entirely to the boys,) they are 
 commonly so bigotted, or their servants are so, 
 that they will not take the care of them, if they
 
 JOURNEY 157 
 
 are not catholicks. Then they must go to mass at 
 the hours others go ; or, if they were allowed to go 
 out and play at the time others go, and have no- 
 body to instruct them in their own religion, or keep 
 them in mind of it, they would have none at all. 
 
 There are no protestant houses boys can pension 
 in, for what they pay cannot make it worth any- 
 body's while, who can get bread at home, to make 
 that his busness. The only protection is a tutor, 
 or their parents in the place ; as for the first, there 
 are very few deserve such a trust, and for the last 
 that can very seldom happen. I know there are 
 instances of English people pensioning their boys 
 in a Jesuits' colledge when they are in the place. 
 They tell the rector 
 
 c Here is my son, I intend he shall be a pro- 
 testant ; give him his learning, and let him observe 
 your rules : I will not let him go to play while 
 others are at mass; carry him there, and whilst 
 they read their prayers, let him read his : on 
 Sundays and holydays, when there is no school, 
 I take him home to my house : ' by which means 
 the boy keeps both his religion and language. 
 
 This the Jesuits never refuse, for they are not 
 very strict, and are people of the best sense, and 
 therefore less bigotted than the common clergy.
 
 158 MRS. CALDERW.OOD'S 
 
 When I came here, 1 a gentleman I knew at Spaw, 
 an Englishman, one Mr. Nidham, 2 who is gover- 
 nour to a young lad, one Townly, who has a 
 good estate in England, and Roman catholick ; 
 his uncle it was who suffered in iy46. 3 This Mr. 
 Nidham was not in town for some days after I 
 came. When he came to town, I went with him 
 to the Jesuits' colledge ; they here take no pen- 
 sioners. He told the prefect of the studies, who 
 
 1 To Brussels. 
 
 2 John Turberville Needham, a priest of the Roman Catholic 
 Church, was born in 1713, educated at Douay, and became 
 F.R.S. of London ; in 1 749 he published ' Observations on the 
 Generation, Composition, and Decomposition, of Vegetable and 
 Animal Substances? Prior to that he had produced a work on 
 Microscopical Discoveries, etc. London, 1745. It appears that 
 many of these early experiments in ' Development ' of Needham's 
 his ' experiences ' he terms them (see chap. viii. post] with 
 several of his plates, had been made use of in the second volume 
 of M. de Buffon's Nat. History. With a view to recovering 
 these and following them up, he issued his Nouvelles Observa- 
 tions. Paris, 1750. For the writer held the theory, hardly 
 admissible in the present day ' Lorsque un Auteur s'ouvre une 
 nouvelle route, et fait quelques decouvertes, il a le droit in- 
 contestable des les poursuivre lui-meme, et personne ne doit en 
 tirer des consequences qu'il n'ait declare qu'il les a poussees aussi 
 loin qu'il lui etoit possible.' (Preface.) 
 
 Father Needham became Rector of the Academy of Sciences 
 at Brussels, and died in 1781. 
 
 3 Colonel Francis Townley, Governor of Carlisle, a gentle-
 
 JOURNEY 159 
 
 is the person who takes the scholars, that we had 
 our two boys to put to their colledge, that they 
 were protestants, and that when the school dis- 
 missed, and others went to mass, they were to 
 come home and then return ; to which he said 
 
 ( To be sure, very well ; he never had anything 
 to do with the boys' religion, his only busness was 
 to see justice done them in their learning.' 
 
 Mr. Nidham advised that they should be pen- 
 sioned, in order to their getting the language the 
 sooner, and the prefect recommended one who 
 lived hard by the colledge, and had but other three. 
 The prefect told him he was to . have nothing to 
 do with their religion, that they were to go out at 
 mass time, and that they were to eat meat on 
 
 man of an old Roman Catholic family in Lancashire, was brought 
 to trial for having in Nov. 1745 w i h 3000 persons seized the 
 city and castle of Carlisle in the cause of the Stewarts. He was 
 executed on Kennington Common on 3Oth July 1746, along 
 with several others ; among these James Dawson, a youth of 
 good family, who had run away from Cambridge to join the 
 Chevalier's army. The circumstance of his betrothed witness- 
 ing the horrors of his execution forms the subject of the touch- 
 ing ballad of 'Jemmy Dawson ' preserved in Percy's Reliques 
 
 4 She followed him, prepared to view 
 
 The terrible behests of law ; 
 And the last scene of Jemmy's woes 
 With calm and stedfast eye she saw : ' 
 
 but having seen all she sank back, and died.
 
 160 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 meagure days. This the man scrupled at; at 
 which the prefect said to Mr. Nidham 
 
 c The man is a little scrupelous, but if the lady 
 would take them home on meagure days, it would 
 do as well ; ' 
 
 which I agreed to, and was very well pleased 
 with the house, and every thing about it. But I 
 found that the man drew back, for he had an old 
 carefull body of a housekeeper, who could not 
 think of taking care of hereticks. So, as I by 
 that time had got a young lad to come in and 
 teach them at these hours they were from the 
 school, I was the more indifferent, at least till I 
 see further. 
 
 This is a degression, and by the time I bring 
 myself to this time, I will be able to give you a 
 fuller account of things of that nature. 
 
 But to return : we came that night to Tirlemont, 
 which is a dead sort of place ; a good extent, but 
 few and poor inhabitants. The only manufactories 
 of the place are prayers and linen, for there are 
 thirteen convents in it, and a great number of 
 weavers. They have in it a sort of lay channons, 
 who can marry ; but the Roman church is such a 
 hogepoge of half clergy and whole clergy, dignities 
 that are temporary, and can be laid down and dis-
 
 JOURNEY 161 
 
 penced with, and others that cannot, that I cannot 
 [be] mistress of the subject yet. 
 
 From Tirlemont we came to Liege, which, of 
 all the towns ever I saw, I think the most abomin- 
 able. 1 It lies in the bottom of a glen, on the 
 meeting of severall small rivers which there run 
 into the Maes. There is one little haugh 2 the low 
 part of the town stands upon, and all the rest of it 
 is scambling up on the sides of the hill, and the 
 only plain ground about it is a strip by the water 
 side up and down. It is just Edinburgh reversed 
 in the situation, or the Cowgate made the principall 
 street. 1 never saw so ugly a town, and anything 
 so pretty as all about it ; for four miles up and down 
 the water, it is one continued orchard or vineyard, 
 with pretty situated, ill-built country houses. All 
 the haughs on the water side are hop-gardens, and 
 the bare scary 3 braes where grass will not grow, and 
 just like the parts of Largo Law where the rain 
 has washed off the soil, are all vineyards. 
 
 The wine is but of a poor quality, but serves 
 for common use to the country. I have always 
 heard that hops must have a very sheltered situa- 
 
 1 ' On dit que cette Ville est 1'Enfer des femmes, le Purgatoire 
 des hommes, et le Paradis des Pretres.' Les Delices des Pays- 
 Bas, 1785. 
 
 2 Low level ground by a river-side. 3 Rocky.
 
 162 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 tion ; this is so to be sure, but there must be some 
 good swirls of wind come down that bottom. The 
 method of planting hops is, you set your plants 
 in rows about two feet distance, and to every 
 plant they give a pole, which is a tree, like the 
 smallest sort of what we call cabers l for country 
 houses, from about fourteen to twenty feet high ; 
 upon this the plant creeps, and where it is planted 
 there is a little loose earth like a mole-hill. I see 
 sometimes they give every two a pole ; the poles 
 are the sole expence, but I suppose they last a good 
 while, for I see them gathered together and set up 
 on end in stacks, when the hops are taken down. 
 They have in all this country prodigious tall kidney 
 beans, which they support with poles like the hops, 
 and which grow almost as high ; they feed greatly 
 upon them, and they salt them up for winter in 
 barrells. 
 
 In Liege there are about seventy convents 
 and monastries, and fifty thousand beggars. The 
 Prince and Bishop is of the house of Bavaria ; he 
 is chosen by what they call the trifoncias. 2 There 
 
 1 Wooden beams ; an uncommon use of the Gaelic word. 
 
 2 The Trefoncias, or Trefonciers, seem to be a local 
 peculiarity of Liege, and another name for the Canons. ' Get 
 illustre Chapitre qui fait toute la gloire de la ville de Liege, a 
 pour dignites, (i.) 1'Eveque et Prince; (2.) le Grand-Prevot, et 
 Archidiacre de la Cite; (3.) le Grand-Doyen et Chef du Chapitre,
 
 JOURNEY 163 
 
 are sixty channons, thirty of whom are trifoncias, 
 and elect the bishop ; all these must be of the best 
 families, and who can prove their nobility by six- 
 teen branches. These have great livings, and 
 officiate in the church, or are present at high mass 
 in common days, in robes of purple silks, with 
 tufts and tassels which tuck them up in the taills 
 and on the sleeves ; above this, fine muslin sur- 
 pluses with point, which makes a very genteel 
 dress. On grand days they have robes vastly rich ; 
 I saw one of them at Spaw in a lay habit, but a 
 coarse like carle ; but I saw two of them in the 
 church at Liege, one of them was a tall genteel 
 man as ever I saw, and looked very elegant in his 
 purple habit. The great church is a very fine one, 
 and has silver candlesticks to the value of severall 
 thousand pounds. 
 
 etc. . . . Les Chanoines doivent etre nobles, ou Docteurs, 
 ou Licencies en Theologie ou en Droits. . . . On nomme les 
 Chanoines communement Trefonciers, et ils ont le droit d'elire 
 1'Eveque.' Les Delices des Pays-Bas, t. iv. p. 99. Paris, 1785. 
 
 There were at one period, it is recorded, in the Chapter, at 
 the same time, seven sons of kings, thirteen sons of dukes, and 
 twenty-two sons of counts; and, it is added, 'L'Empereur 
 Henri iv. a etc du nombre de ces Trefonciers, et il y a reside en 
 1107.' Ibid. pp. 99-100. 
 
 It appears from Littre that Trefoncier is a ' Proprietaire du 
 fond et du trefonds,' or owner of the soil and subsoil ; trefonds 
 or tresfonds being a technical law-term.
 
 164 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 I forgot to tell you, that before we came into 
 Liege, we stopped to dine at a single house upon 
 the road ; and, whilst we were at dinner, a French 
 post-chaise arrived, and out came a fattish fair 
 man of middle age. 
 
 f I am sure,' says I, f that is a Briton, I know 
 by his face.' 
 
 He only stopped to change horses, and did not 
 come in, and, as I had never seen a French post- 
 chaise, I went out to look at it, as the machinery 
 is very curious. I looked at the chaise, and the 
 man at me, and I at him, but as he did not speak, 
 I began to think I was mistaken. After I was gone 
 in again, he says to John 
 
 'Is not that your lady, and come from 
 England?' 
 
 c Yes,' says John, ( and I dare say she thinks 
 you are not of her country, because you did not 
 speak to her.' 
 
 Upon inquiring further, he found I was going 
 to Spaw to see Sir James my brother ; upon which 
 he sent in his compliments, that he was a particular 
 friend of Sir James's, and would come and pay me 
 a visit : we said he would be very welcome, so in 
 he came. He told us he had come from Liege, is 
 posting to Paris ; he had not been at Spaw, but
 
 JOURNEY 165 
 
 informed us all about Sir James, and that Jamie l 
 was gone for two days to see them at Spaw; was 
 intimate with them, and knew all about my Lady 
 Weems, 2 etc. 
 
 I found he was not a Scotsman, but he talked of 
 Scotland and England, of all the news, etc., and 
 chatted very agreeably for half an hour. When 
 he took his leave, I said I should be very glad to 
 know to whom I was oblidged for this visit. He 
 said it was no favour ; he had done himself a 
 pleasure. 
 
 ' Ha,' thinks I, ' that won't do; I'll try you again.' 
 
 c I should be very glad to have it in my power,' 
 says I, c to inform Sir James to whom I have been 
 oblidged by this visit.' 
 
 * Madam,' says he, C I have done myself an 
 honour and pleasure in seeing you, who, the first 
 time I looked at you, I knew must be a near 
 relation of one who I have the greatest friendship 
 and value for.' 
 
 1 Sir James's son, afterwards General Sir James Steuart- 
 Denham of Cokness. 
 
 2 Janet, daughter and heiress of Colonel Francis Charteris of 
 Amisfield, East Lothian, was wife of James, 4th Earl of Wemyss. 
 Her eldest son, David, Lord Elcho, a chief mover in the '45, 
 was now in France, having fled thither after Culloden. Besides 
 Lady Frances Steuart, her daughter Lady Helen Dalrymple is 
 frequently named in these journals.
 
 166 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 And he bowed and cringed out at the door, 
 and pulled it to after him, to prevent Mr. 
 Calderwood from seeing him to the door. 
 
 { You and I shall not part this way,' thinks I, 
 f one name or another I will have. Go,' says I to 
 John, f give my compliments to that man, and tell 
 him I beg to know whose compliments I shall give 
 to Sir James, and who I shall inform him inquired 
 so kindly after him.' This message John delivered. 
 
 1 Tell your lady,' says he, f my name is Johnston, 
 an old acquaintance, and a great freind of her 
 brother's ; ' and off he drove. 
 
 When I told Sir James of this he was astonished ; 
 ( I do not know on earth,' says he, ' one man of 
 that name ; ' I described his figure, told everything 
 he said, but to no purpose ; no part of it answered 
 to any person ever he had seen or been acquainted 
 with. 
 
 Liege is a place where foull and clean of all 
 nations come. Officers of every country come 
 there to recruit ; a fellow deserts from the French, 
 he runs to Liege, the officers of the Queen of 
 Hungary or the King of Prussia pick him up ; 
 whenever a rogue dare not keep his own country, 
 he comes there, and he is safe. A gentleman will 
 come in family, and live for months ; nobody 
 knows his name, nor thinks of asking it, and
 
 JOURNEY 167 
 
 suppose they did, they would not be a bit the 
 wiser : Monsieur this or that, but who knows who 
 Mr. Such-a-thing is? Mr. Gordon 1 of Cowbairdy 
 lived six months at Liege with his family, and his 
 lady lay in ; all this time he was taken for the 
 Pretender. Some say the Pretender did live there 
 some months ; but he might live anywhere after 
 living three weeks in London, about three years 
 ago : 2 so much for government intelligence. This 
 is certainly fact, and very well known in all this 
 country, and nobody would beleive me when I 
 said I never heard it. He came over in the 
 
 1 There were three brothers of this family 1st, Sir William 
 Gordon of Park, co. Banff, who was forfeited for his share in 
 'the '45'; he died at Douai in 1751. 2d, Captain John 
 Gordon (half brother of Sir William), who took the Hanoverian 
 side and succeeded perhaps in consequence of that circumstance 
 in obtaining possession of the estate of Park while his elder 
 brother was still alive. He had alleged that Sir William had 
 never been properly infeft ; that he himself had advanced money 
 on the estate ; and that Sir William's children were aliens by 
 birth. 3d, James Gordon of Cowbairdy, Aberdeenshire, full 
 brother to John, married Mary, daughter of the I5th Lord 
 Forbes as mentioned at page 183. Cowbairdy was concerned in 
 the Rebellion, but pardoned, and died in 1773. His son Ernest 
 succeeded to Park on the death of his uncle John in 1781. 
 
 2 It was generally believed that the Government were aware 
 of the Prince's presence in London at the time referred to, but 
 deemed it prudent to ignore the fact; see Introduction to 
 Rtdgauntlet.
 
 i68 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 pacquet ; went about publickly ; was at a card 
 assembly where the first people in the government 
 were; his bust in marble standing on the lady's 
 table ; went to a church ; carried witnesses with 
 him; solemnly renounced the Roman catholick 
 religion, which was recorded. What name he 
 took I know not, but he stayed three weeks, and 
 returned the way he came. 
 
 Mr. Gordon still lives at Liege, but was at Spaw 
 when I came there. Mrs. Gordon has an old 
 norland gentlewoman, who was taking care of her 
 bairns there. I was not long set till Margaret 
 came to see me, for you cannot imagine so good 
 a nose the Scots folk have to smell out each other, 
 when they come to a place. Margaret has almost 
 lost her own language, and has not found another 
 in its place. 1 A little girl about three years old 
 speaks French to her, and she speaks English to 
 the bairn, and they both understand each other, 
 but cannot speak in the same language. 
 
 Margaret did her best to entertain me ; she 
 carried us up to see the Jesuites' garden. Their 
 
 1 It almost seems from this remark that Lord Braxfield's 
 celebrated witticism regarding young Francis Jeffrey on his 
 return from Oxford, that ' the puir laddie had tint his Scotch, 
 but fand nae English/ may not have been altogether original.
 
 JOURNEY 169 
 
 colledge 1 is up a strait, steep, dirty close, but after 
 you have got up, there is a very large building, 
 and a good extent of garden still higher ; for here 
 is a flat, laid out like a parterre, walks, seats, and 
 bowers, some water jets and statues, and a volary, 2 
 which is a little place with the face of it wire. I 
 asked if the birds bred there ? They said they 
 admitted no females. Then you go up a stair to 
 another flat, and that is kitchen ground ; then 
 another stair, and there is a bowling green ; then 
 another stair, and there are shaded walks for study 
 and contemplation ; then another, and this leads 
 
 1 The Society of Jesuits had been expelled from Holland early 
 in the 1 8th century. Even when they had been driven out of 
 France, Spain, Portugal, and Naples, they continued to be pro- 
 tected by Maria Theresa in the Austrian dominions. Her son, 
 who became Joseph n., however, used all his influence against 
 them. Florus Anglo-Bavaricus (Liege, 1685), the work of 
 Father John Keynes, S.J., treats of the foundation and early 
 history of the Jesuit College at Liege, the theologate of the Eng- 
 lish Province (CHALLONER'S Mems. of Miss. Priests. Edit. 1878. 
 Pref. p. xxix.) ; it flourished until the suppression of the Society 
 in 1773. Subsequently the Prince Bishop of Liege restored the 
 College to Father Howard (see p. 172, post], and it was con- 
 verted into an Academy for English Catholic youth.' (FOLEY'S 
 Records, s. xii. pp. 185-9.) After an existence of 180 years 
 this renowned College was abandoned, and the community in 
 consequence of the French Revolution emigrated to Stonyhurst, 
 leaving Liege I4th July 1794 (ib. vol. vii. p. xlix.). 
 
 2 ' Volary (Fr. voliere), a great bird-cage.' BAILEY'S Diet.
 
 iyo MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 you to a very neat summer-house ; and above that 
 an observatory like a cupelo, out of which you 
 have a very fine viue, and command all the town 
 and the river. 
 
 The other side of Liege offers quite a new 
 prospect ; it stands on the entry to the Arrdens, 
 or what we would call the mouth of the highlands, 
 as all to that hand is covered with wood, (as you will 
 see in the map,) called the forrest of the Arrdens. 
 
 But to return : we went up and pulled the bell 
 at the outer door, and after some time there came 
 an old father, and pulled bye a bit of timber, 
 which covered a plate of iron in the midst of the 
 door, and in this plate is cut out IHS, which being 
 interpretate is, Jesus Hominum Sahator. Margaret 
 asked for Father Daniel, or Father Mackenzie, 
 but none of them were at hand. 
 
 'This,' says she, f is Father Blair, a very civill 
 man, but I am not so well acquainted with him as 
 with the others.' 
 
 She informed him that we were British, and he 
 opened the door, and received us very civilly. He 
 was an old little body, and lame of a leg, that is, a 
 short leg and a long, for which reason he had had 
 a dispensation to allow him to be admitted into the 
 church. He carried us into a parlour, and in a
 
 JOURNEY 171 
 
 little time some other fathers came ; two Scotsmen, 
 one Maxwell, who goes at present by the name of 
 Stewart, because he had wrote something concern- 
 ing the disputes in France betwixt the clergy and 
 parliament, and was obliged to leave the country. 
 This man was from Nidsdale, 1 and had been out of 
 the country since he was ten years old, but he 
 spoke the language pretty well yet. He is a tall 
 old man with a grey head, and one of the best faces, 
 and most reverend figures I ever saw. 
 
 Mr. Calderwood, by discoursing Father Blair, 
 found he was a Scotsman too, though born in 
 England. His father was Sir Adam Blair of Car- 
 berry, 2 and left the country with King James vn. 
 It was a brother of his that died lately, and left his 
 money to Andrew Wallace; this brother he had 
 not heard of for thirty years, and only knew he 
 had been in the army ; was of another marriage, 
 and a protestant. I thought, when the father 
 
 1 Nithsdale, the country of the Maxwells. 
 
 2 Sir Adam Blair was in all probability one of the Ayrshire 
 Blairs, as in 1 669, being then a Knight and owner of Carberry, 
 he had a charter of Over Lochridge in the parish of Stewarton. 
 He was forfeited in 1695, and appears to have held Carberry, 
 in Mid Lothian, in the interval between its sale by the Rigg 
 family and its acquisition by the Dicksons of Sarabeg, referred 
 to in the History of Musselburgb.
 
 172 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 heard he had left money, he was not so dead to 
 the world as not to wish he had got a part of it : 
 and, indeed, the house has not their affairs in the 
 best order at present, as they have suffered in the 
 troubles of Europe ; for their foundation is from 
 the Elector of Bavaria. 
 
 After the Reformation in Britain, the popish 
 princes having compassion on the clergy who were 
 turned out, then gave foundations for English 
 monastries, convents, and colledges, to which no 
 other countries are admitted. There is a Scots 
 colledge at Paris, an English one at St. Omers, 
 and this at Liege, and severall others, besides 
 severall nunneries all through this country. The 
 fathers who first received this benefit at Liege from 
 Bavaria refused to have the lands in property, to 
 save them trouble, and accepted of such an income 
 from the Elector : and in the last war, his country 
 was so distressed, that he could not pay them their 
 rents, and they were obliged to give up house, till a 
 very few. Their number ought to be about ninety, 
 but they are not yet able to maintain so many. 
 Their revenue should be about eight hundred 
 a-year ; but they do not draw above four or five 
 hundred. They have a father rector, a father 
 prefect of the studies, and a father minister who
 
 JOURNEY 173 
 
 has the care of the housekeeping and providing 
 everything; this is one Howard, a very well 
 looked fellow, and by his face, I would not think 
 he was one who had renounced the world and the 
 flesh, whatever he might do the devil. 
 
 As for my friend Father Daniel, he is a good- 
 natured, innocent, obliging soul, and very ugly and 
 very merry. He is just a Scots pedantick scholar, 
 and was always snuffling, out of curiosity, about 
 every sort of religion, to see what it was, and what 
 this set of folks' tenets were, and upon what they 
 founded their differences from others upon. Had 
 he been bred a divine, he would at this time [have] 
 been a member of the presbitry of Dumfermline, 
 or perhaps Mr. Jamieson's pastor at Kennoway ; 
 but, as he was bred a smuggling merchant, or 
 perhaps a packman, he walked twenty miles to hear 
 Mr. Whitfeild, Mr. Ebenezer Erskine, &c. ; and, 
 after satisfying his curiosity about them, he fell to 
 trying what sort of cheese the papaists set their 
 traps with, and, as he was snuffling about that, I 
 suppose he found a life of study and idleness could 
 be had without an estate, or so much as a farthing, 
 none of which the others had offered him. His 
 being a proselite gained him an easy admittance, 
 and there he lives at his ease, and labours at logick
 
 i 7 4 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 and what not, to his heart's content. I do beleive 
 he, poor creature, has not a wish beyond finishing 
 his studies and becoming a professor ; he has three 
 years of study yet to come. 
 
 The students are keept very strictly to hours 
 and rules, and are keept at an awfull distance from 
 the old fathers, and when they have a riged rector, 
 they are keept very hard ; but the rector of this 
 colledge is a very good man, and they are all very 
 fond of him. Daniel asked leave, the time we 
 were there, to attend us, and obtained it, to his 
 great joy ; he looked always when he came, like a 
 dog wagging his taill for gladness to get out. 
 
 I do not wonder in the least that the number of 
 fathers are keept up, for they have a very good 
 life ; but how the convents get brothers is a little 
 more surprising. Those folks are not bound, and 
 may go or not as they please, and yet they come 
 and serve the convents as cooks, shoemakers, and 
 taliors, etc., and receive nothing but their meat. 
 The fathers called for burgundy and bisquit, and 
 there we must drink and eat, and never was any 
 thing so kind. 
 
 Whiles Mr. Calderwood went through the 
 colledge (which was not permitted to me) with the 
 old fathers, Daniel attended me. He told me he
 
 JOURNEY 175 
 
 was born at Inverness, and bred at the school of 
 Biggar, was afterwards a smuggler both in Scotland 
 and England ; by which I concluded he had been 
 a packman, but could not put that question to a 
 reverend father. He told me all about his con- 
 version, and the rules of their society. I said I 
 had never heard of one taking such a stride at 
 once, as from the top of the kirk of Scotland to 
 the top of the church of Rome. 
 
 < Did you not/ says I, f set your foot upon 
 episcopy in the way ? ' 
 
 f Episcopy,' says he, < is noncence ; it is just a 
 bastard popery, has all the faults your church can 
 find to ours, and none of our advantages ; and, 
 look into their tenets as fixed by act of parliament, 
 and they are ours in the full extent, only the 
 moderate party of late years have explained them 
 away without altering them, and so has made it 
 noncence : There is no choice but popery or 
 presbitry.' 
 
 ' Won't you be glad,' says I, ' to see Scotland 
 again ? I suppose we will have you there some 
 time on a mission, and you '11 have the folks coming 
 to you for light, as you did.' 
 
 At this he laught till he was like to die. 
 
 c O,' says he, c that does my heart good to hear
 
 176 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 that phrase. I have not heard it since I left 
 Scotland ; I will not accept of a mission, if I can 
 help it, for that of converting is quite needless : 
 it is only for want of thinking that everybody is 
 not of our religion.' 
 
 c What do you say to our divines,' says I, f who 
 imploy their whole lives in the study of religion, 
 and yet you never saw one of them convert them- 
 selves ? ' 
 
 f O ! ' says he, c the interest and passions of man- 
 kind govern them so insensibly, that that is at the 
 bottom, though they are not sensible of it.' 
 
 c I beg pardon,' says I, c many of them have a 
 very poor living and hard duty, that would change 
 it for the ease and affluence of the popish clergy ; 
 if they could convert themselves, their interest 
 would go alongst with them.' 
 
 He was obliged then to have recourse to c calling 
 grace,' and severall other unintelligent things. 
 
 I was not surprised at him in this, as he is a 
 meer scholar ; but it is surprizing how weakly men 
 of the best sense [and] the outmost freedom of 
 thinking in everything, and even in many things 
 regarding the church, talk upon certain points of 
 their religion. I have often heard folks say it was 
 dangerous for protestants to talk of religion with
 
 JOURNEY 177 
 
 the folks of sense amongst them, but I never found 
 it, and realy beleived they had more to say for it 
 than they have. Some things, indeed, the pro- 
 testants beleive they carry to a greater length than 
 they do, and all they will gain or lose by this is, 
 that they are nearer us than we think, which does 
 not bring us nearer them than we are already. 
 But, in these points in which we totally differ, I 
 find they cannot make the story hang so well 
 together as that one part shall not contradick 
 another. Their church-government and authority 
 is so curiously interwoven with their faith in 
 religious matters, that they cannot separate them, 
 otherways it would be easy to determine in what 
 matters they differ from us in faith, and what in 
 church-government purely. I never dispute with 
 them, for that looks as if you wanted to convert 
 them, and besides, it is not the best way to get out 
 the story ; but I never stand to ask at a sensible 
 man, who I know can give a true account of the 
 thing, upon what foundation they build such a 
 principle ; it is cruell to ask a gentleman anything, 
 for they can give no account but that the church 
 obliges them to beleive so, and that is enough. 
 
 Since I am speaking of the papaists, I shall give 
 them justice on one point. God knows what is in 
 
 M
 
 178 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 their heart, but they have all the appearance of 
 being religious, the highest of them, and are not 
 ashamed of it as we are ; I beleive it is more so 
 here than in France, where there are a great many 
 infidells. The churches are always open till after 
 benediction, which is six o'clock at night ; and at 
 no time you can go in but you see a great many 
 very well drest gentlemen and ladies at their privat 
 devotions. Some are very serious, and others will 
 look after you and mumell their prayers all the 
 time ; almost everybody goes to church to say 
 their prayers, for there is no closet in any room 
 in this country. 
 
 Father Daniel, as I told you, was allowed to 
 attend us, so he went through the town, and into 
 some shops, where I bought a handkercheif and 
 ruffles, of which he has great skill. Mr. Calder- 
 wood and he went to the Carthusian monastry, 
 which is a very pretty building, and stands very 
 well on the other side of the town, where they 
 have more plain ground; I sat in the coach till 
 they came out, as I could not be admitted. One of 
 the fathers came to the door, and told me I might 
 call for any thing I wanted, or go into the place 
 allotted for the brothers, which I did, and called 
 for a glass of small beer, which was pretty good.
 
 JOURNEY 179 
 
 These monks are very rich, and live very well, 
 but eat no flesh : they do not live in comunity 
 like others, but every one has their own dining- 
 room, kitchen, bed-chamber, and little garden, 
 and it is only on certain days they can see one 
 another. They amuse themselves with different 
 things ; and when a stranger comes to see any of 
 them, or any of the other orders makes them 
 a visit, they are transported and quite mad after 
 news, or anything of that kind. This is not the 
 strictest order, but the next to La-Trap, where 
 they meet together at meals as others do, but 
 never look upon or speak to each other. 
 
 A gentleman told me he knew an officer who 
 had been very graceless, to atone for which he left 
 the world, and went into the order of La-Trap, 
 where he lived many years. When he came to 
 die, he told the rector he had no concern for any- 
 thing, but for a brother he had left in the world, 
 following the wicked courses he had done, and 
 wished he could see him before he died. 
 
 c ,Give yourself no trouble on that score,' 
 says the rector, f for your brother has been in 
 this house these four years;' and, though they 
 had eat at the same table, had never seen each 
 other.
 
 i8o MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 Father Daniel said these fathers had a good 
 situation, by what they 1 had, for, before their door 
 was the only bit of plain ground the people who 
 quarelled had to fight upon ; and they were so 
 quarellsome a pack in Liege, that there were duel Is 
 fought almost every day there. This I could 
 easily beleive, for, when I was going up, I met 
 two men coming down, both bleeding, who had 
 been fighting. 
 
 c There now,' says Daniell, c this is very hard 
 upon us, for, if we see them, which we can hardly 
 miss to do, it is excommunication if we do not go 
 out to rede the quarel, and that we do not choice 
 to do ; for, when I came first here,' says he, f I sat 
 in my window one day when two were fighting, 
 and, when I came down to dinner, told what I had 
 seen, at which the fathers stared, and told me that 
 what I had done was no less than excommunication, 
 but my ignorance should excuse me. Now, my 
 window is just over that place, and I dare hardly 
 look out for fear I see them, and if I do suspect 
 that they are going to fight, I run and hide myself.' 
 
 We went up to see the feild of battell where 
 Rochow 2 was fought ; there is still the mark where 
 
 1 At the Jesuits' college. 
 
 2 Rocoux, fought 1 1 th Oct. 1 746 ; when the allies had to
 
 JOURNEY 181 
 
 the battry was, which the Dutch abandoned, other- 
 ways it could never have been forced; it was a 
 square like a diamond, and commanded the feild 
 to every hand. It is the finest viue ever I saw ; 
 the ground lies about it, you would think, in a 
 circle; the one half is a fine cultivated country, 
 not inclosed, and full of towns and villages, all 
 planted, and very pretty, [with] spires in great 
 numbers ; and to the other hand is the Arrdens, 
 unequall ground rather than hills, all covered with 
 wood. There is in the midst of the feild which 
 the French occupied one single large tree, under 
 which Marashall Sax stood on horseback during 
 the battell; it commands all the feild. On the 
 one hand of the road to Liege the country is very 
 populous, and to the other not so, though the 
 feilds are as well cultivated. 
 
 I did not think of counting the towns till 
 I passed St. Tron, where we breakfasted the day 
 we came to Liege, but betwixt that and Liege, 
 
 retreat before Marshal Saxe. The village is situated on a 
 beautiful plain not far from Liege. The interest of the party in 
 this engagement may partly have been connected with the fact 
 that the Scots Greys largely recruited from Mrs. Calderwood's 
 native district of Clydesdale, as the old Troop rolls of the 
 Regiment show, figured in it, along with the Enniskillen 
 Dragoons and Queen's Bays.
 
 182 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 which is about five or six hours' journey, I counted 
 above a hundred towns and villages, but there are 
 very few single houses like farms, and nothing like 
 a gentleman's seat ; that country being so often the 
 seat of war, I suppose makes the people flock 
 together. 
 
 We passed likewayes the feild of the battell of 
 Landon, 1 fought by King William ; it is a great 
 pity they leave no marks of these battells, for, had 
 it not been that Mr. Calderwood remembered by 
 the geography of the country, and by the name of 
 a little river that he likeways remembered was near 
 the place, we could not have known it. It is a 
 track of plain ground of great extent, and an old 
 soldier, who keeped a turnpike after we were passed 
 it, told Mr. Calderwood he was right as to the 
 place. They are at great pains to till down all the 
 trenches, and throw down the batteries, and leave 
 no vestige of the war ; of that Dutch battery they 
 
 1 Landen, a village 24 miles west of Liege, on the railway 
 from Tirlemont to Waremme. Near it the French under 
 Marshal Luxembourg defeated the Dutch and English allies 
 chiefly through the misconduct of the Dutch troops. On the 
 morning of the battle, zgth July 1693, King William HI. of 
 England had repulsed the French with great loss. (DAVIES'S 
 Hist, of Holland, iii. 233.) The Duke of Berwick, natural son 
 of James n., fighting on the French side, was taken prisoner.
 
 JOURNEY 183 
 
 have only left one corner, because the King of 
 France dined there, they say, the day after the 
 battle. 
 
 There are great coal mines all about Liege, and 
 what adds to the uglyness of the town is the dirty 
 smoaky look it has, for the coals are so dirty there, 
 that they cannot get the floors kept clean without 
 a great deall of trouble ; so they wash in the dirt, 
 and make their floor a sort of black japan. The 
 coal seams are of a vast thickness, and the coals 
 very large ; they drive twenty miles off and more, 
 in great heavy waggons drawn by six or seven 
 horses, and yet the roads are not one bit broke,, as 
 it is a strong causway. 
 
 We stayed three days at Liege, and Sir James 
 and Mr. Gordon came from Spaw and met us. 
 This Mr. Gordon is brother to Sir William Gordon 
 of Park, a very well looked genteel man,' married 
 to a daughter of Lord Forbes's, a very good, 
 sweet-tempered woman, but not very handsome : 
 she was at Spaw for her health. 
 
 I need say nothing of my meeting with my 
 brother, as those who have no brother whom they 
 love, that they have been separate from for eleven 
 years, will not understand it ; and those who have 
 will without my telling them.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 SPA and its Waters : Mr. Luck : Mr. Hay : 
 Dutch Jews in the Ball-room : Mr. Hay's 
 Farro Bank : The Spencers : Young Perry and 
 his Governor : Mrs. Poyntz and the Duchess 
 d'Aremberg: A Jesuit ruse at Liege: The 
 Bishop and Prince of Osburgh : Lady Betty 
 Worsley : Lord Dungarvan and the Hon. H. 
 Boyle : Madame Beaton : Madame Patine : 
 Baron de la Fael: M. de Marr : Madame 
 Hussy : Madame Cresnar : SIR JAMES STEUART 
 and Mons. D'Aubigny. 
 
 WE got a coach and went all to Spaw, but such 
 roads I never saw for a coach; by the time we 
 arrived, my head was like to split with perfect 
 fear. It is about seven hours' journey, through a 
 moorish and woody country ; there are iron mines 
 in it, for which the wood serves, and all the 
 country round is served with charcoal from it : in 
 the vales, which are pretty narrow, there is pretty
 
 MRS. C ALDER WOOD'S JOURNEY 185 
 
 good grass, and on the banks, where it is not too 
 steep, some corn. Spaw lies in a very pretty 
 bottom, the banks are steep to the one hand, but 
 a graduall ascent to the other ; the meadows have 
 a very fine verdure, and there are walks cut upon 
 the high banks, which make it easy to get up, and 
 a very pretty prospect of a wild woody country 
 from it, not very populous. There are two or 
 three pretty good streets in it, and little burns 
 running through, with bridges over them to join 
 the streets, which keeps it clean. 
 
 The Powhon fountain is in the town, and a little 
 bit from it is a short walk betwixt two hedges. 
 This fountain and the Geronster is mostly used ; 
 I have made them be put upon my quadrill box, 
 which is better than my description. The company 
 goes to the other fountains in cariolls, which is 
 just a geeg, or rather a bad cart, covered like a 
 chaise, only there are two seats in it like a coach. 
 The houses are very bad, and very few of the 
 rooms have fire-places. Nobody stays there in 
 winter but the inhabitants, and not so many of 
 them as you would imagine, for all the shops are 
 filled in summer with folks who come from Liege 
 to serve the company. 
 
 There is one Irish gentleman who is described in
 
 i86 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 the gallantry of the Spaw by the name of Mr. 
 Luck ; his name is Archibold, he came there 
 twenty-seven years ago in bad health, and has 
 stayed ever since. He is a quiet, silent, recluse, 
 good body, and thinks every year that he is going 
 away, and takes leave of all the folks in the place, 
 but if he goes the length of Liege or Aix-la- 
 Chapell, for a month or two, he always returns ; 
 he has his room from day to day, and minds only 
 his prayers, and is very much with some of his 
 country folks when there : I have him on my box, 
 a meagre man. 
 
 There is a Scotsman who keeps a publick room ; 
 he is one Mr. Hay, who was long about my Lady 
 Erroll, and somehow or other settled here. He 
 has built a very good house, and has the ball and 
 card room in it, and some lodging rooms. Besides 
 that, he has another which was let this year to Mr. 
 Spencer's family at a guinea a day, for which he 
 made twenty-one beds, and provided clean linen 
 twice every day for the family at table. As for 
 the ball, he provides the musick, the room and 
 lights, and every gentleman pays what in their 
 money is reckoned fourty pence, but in ours it is 
 like two merks Scots; they call it four skilling, 
 and each skilling is the nearest thing to our half
 
 JOURNEY 187 
 
 merk, and counts tenpence of theirs. The skilling 
 was but sixpence in Holland, here it is tenpence, 
 and at Bruxells it is sevenpence. 
 
 The houses are all built of timber and plaster, 
 except Mr. Hay's, which is built of brick, and 
 some few others, otherways it would not be very 
 safe to dance in them. Mr. Hay's profit is from 
 the cards and farro bank, which is held every night, 
 and dancing but twice a week ; indeed, there are 
 no great incouragements to dance oftener, for they 
 have but two scraping fiddles and a bass, who can- 
 not play two parts of any tune, and then, except 
 it be the Scots and the English, the women of that 
 country cannot go through a country dance, but 
 hobble, hobble, and never stir a foot but as they 
 are pushed from one to another, till their heads 
 are giddy, and then they stand still and stare. 
 They are all madly keen to dance too, and 
 plague the men who can dance to dance with 
 them. 
 
 There was a family of Jews there, Minheir Pinto 
 from Amsterdam, his lady, daughter and son-in- 
 law, another daughter and two sons, the oddest like 
 animals ever was seen, with high noses, and black 
 round eyes set closs to them, like so many owls, 
 they were the keenest dancers and the worst at it
 
 i88 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 ever was. After the company had looked with 
 wonder at their dancing for severall nights, and 
 the men had begun to shun dancing with them, 
 (for they always asked them,) Lady Hellen 1 and 
 Lord Garless 2 danced a strathspey minuet ; when- 
 ever the Jews saw that they fell to it, they lap, 
 they flaghtered so like hens with their feet tied 
 together, that you might have bound the whole 
 company with a straw, and they were delighted. 
 
 The farro bank pays Mr. Hay five ducats each 
 night ; it was held by a considerable number, but 
 only two appeared concerned ; the rest of the party 
 passed themselves for gentlemen of fortune. They 
 played very boldly, which drew in others, and every 
 night there was a considerable deall of money lost, 
 for nobody win. This, I think, with riding about 
 in the forenoon, and sometimes going through the 
 shops for japan and bead- work, which is the only 
 manufactories of the place, were the only amuse- 
 ments of Spaw : sometimes a party at cards held in 
 
 1 Lady Helen, youngest daughter of the 4th Earl of Wemyss, 
 and sister of Lady Frances Steuart, married in 1754 Hew 
 Dalrymple of Fordel, fifth son of Sir John Dalrymple of 
 Cranston, Bart. 
 
 2 John, Lord Garlics, succeeded his father as yth Earl of 
 Galloway in 1773. He was a Knight of the Thistle and a 
 Lord of the Bed-chamber to King George in.
 
 JOURNEY 189 
 
 the forenoon in the ball-room ; and the gentlemen 
 walked and read the news. 
 
 As for the company, it is impossible to tell you 
 what a gathering of all nations was continually 
 coming and going, for the folks of this country go 
 to Spaw for ten or twelve days, some for less. 
 Their names are printed in a list, and sent about ; 
 the folks who are there before send the offer of a 
 visit, and leave a card at their door, and they return 
 the visit by another, and they do not speak when 
 they meet. 
 
 As for the English, who are the most regarded 
 there because they stay the longest, there was Mr. 
 Spencer, 1 his wife, her sister, her mother, a cousine, 
 her two brothers, a chaplain, and one Major Barton, 
 who was Spencer's governour, and such a following 
 of other attendants, that they had one pacquet boat 
 for themselves, and another for their servants and 
 
 1 John Spencer, Esq., who was born in 1734, married in 
 1755 the eldest daughter of the Right Hon. Stephen Poyntz of 
 Midgham, co. Berks, 'a once high gentleman now dim and 
 obsolete.' (Carlyle, Life of Fred, the Great.') Horace Walpole 
 records the gossip that it was expected he would marry one of 
 the beautiful Miss Birds. He had inherited through his father 
 much of the wealth of Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough. In 
 1761 he was created Viscount Althorp; and in 1765 Earl 
 Spencer. He was grandfather of the distinguished Chancellor 
 of the Exchequer of his name.
 
 190 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 baggage : I suppose they would have three going 
 back, for they bought up every thing they could 
 lay their hands on, as did their servants. Mrs. 
 Points told me for one article, that she, for herself 
 and her daughter, bought fourteen gowns at Ant- 
 werp. They came to Antwerp for a jaunt when I 
 was there, and had three coaches and their own 
 post chaise to carry the jaunting party. Mrs. 
 Spencer is a very sweet-like girl, her sister is a 
 great hoyden ; Miss Collier the cousine is a well- 
 looked little lassie, and severall little sparkies were 
 in love with her. I shall mention one of them for 
 the sake of his governour's history. 
 
 He is called Perry, and son to a rich man at 
 London ; by the boy's face he should be either a 
 Jew or a French refugee, but he is the latter. He 
 was sent to France when young, and has almost 
 forgot his English. This, by the by, is easier 
 done I find than folks can imagine ; there are some 
 memories so very slippery, that in three years' 
 want of practice, after they were come a good 
 length, they will forget their language intirly, and 
 very soon come to be at a loss for words. Mr. 
 Gordon had two sons whom he put in a pension in 
 France, when the one was eight and the other ten ; 
 and, though they had each other to speak to, in
 
 JOURNEY 191 
 
 two years' time they could not speak one word of 
 English, nor understand it. 
 
 This Mr. Perry had a governour, whom his 
 father had so much confidence in, that he gave 
 him unlimited credit at Paris, to call for what 
 money he pleased : they were obliged to leave 
 France with the other British, and came last winter 
 to Bruxells. He had never shown any inclination 
 to gaming, untill, this spring, he got into the farro 
 bank society, and there was so lucky as to gain a 
 hundred pounds. This turned his head at once ; 
 he followed them to Spaw, and there lost his 
 hundred pounds, and all the money he had besides, 
 which was the boy's. He drew for more, and off 
 he went again to Bruxells ; by this time the society 
 were come there. He first played away the boy's 
 little chaise and horses, called a cabrioll, and then 
 no less than 4000 ; of this he gained back two, 
 and gave bills on Paris for the remainder, and set 
 out for Italy. 
 
 The boy took care to prevent this, by writing 
 to Paris to stop the payment of them, and to 
 London to his father ; so that the gamesters, who 
 have gone to Paris to receive the money, will get 
 their labour for their pains. 
 
 But to return to the Spencers, they were very
 
 192 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 ill-liked : the mother Points 1 commands the party, 
 and she is a deaf, short-sighted, loud spoken, 
 hackney-headed wife, and played at cards from 
 morning till night. Because she had been about 
 the court, she imagined she was the resident at 
 Spaw, and keept very little company with her own 
 country-folks, because some were Jacobites, others 
 in opposition ; and for the French and Flemish, 
 and the Queen of Hungary, she was at war with 
 them, except the widow of the late Duke of 
 Aremberg, 2 who got ^40,000 from Britain last 
 war, for putting the Austrian troops in motion ; 
 she and her daughter, a chanoness, and Madam 
 Points, keept close together. 
 
 These chanonesses are in severall places in this 
 country ; they are not nuns, but rather preistesses ; 
 they live in a sort of convent manner, but may go 
 about, and may marry. They wear a certain dress 
 when on duty, which is to chant at high mass ; 
 
 1 ' Anne Maria Mordaunt, wife of Stephen Poyntz, governor 
 of William Duke of Cumberland. She had been a great beauty : 
 the poem of the " Fair Circassian " was written on her. She 
 was maid of honour to Queen Caroline.' Walpole. See Letters, 
 vol. iv. p. no. 
 
 2 Leopold, Due d' Aremberg, born I4th Oct. 1690, married 
 the daughter of the Due de Bisaccia or Bisignano (born 4th June 
 1694) on the z6th March 1711. He died in 1754; his v/idow 
 survived till 1766.
 
 JOURNEY 193 
 
 they wear a ribbon cross their shoulders, like our 
 knights, and are chosen out of the best families. 
 If they never marry, then they remain, and have 
 a very good living. It is what one would call a 
 genteel foundation for poor nobility, which no 
 country wants more than this, for everybody loads 
 themselves with pompous titles, either from birth 
 or office, which puts me in mind of an adventure 
 I should have related before I left Liege. 
 
 The fathers came to me, and begged another 
 visit in a very formall manner : they told me there 
 was a countess in that town who was very civill to 
 them, and that she long had a desire to visit them, 
 but they could admitt of no ladies but British ; 
 but if I would come, and let this countess come as 
 it were with me, it would be a great favour both to 
 them and her. She was a very great lady in that 
 place, and her son was generallissimo of the Prince 
 of Liege's troops. This would have sounded 
 greatly in my ears, had I not unfortunately for his 
 Excellence, been in the citydale the day before, 
 and seen the army, consisting of seven hundred 
 poor-like bodies, like the town-guard of Edinburgh, 
 who receive four sous a day, ten of which I told 
 you was one of our half merk. 
 
 I agreed to attend the countess ; I took a coach,
 
 i 9 4 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 and hers followed ; as there was no passing in the 
 entry, I went in first, and stood in the door to let 
 her pass. First passed the countess with a low 
 courtesy, and made me a very fine compliment for 
 this favour; then the daughter passed, and said 
 the same words ; then the neice, and said the same. 
 The mother was a young-like wife, the daughter 
 was a very fair high-featured lass, and the general- 
 lissimo was just her picture : he was attended by 
 the commandant of the citydale, who I think was 
 the ugliest devill ever showed a face ; I suppose he 
 was chosen to fright the enemy from attacking so 
 weak an army. The neice was a little, snod, fair 
 lass. 
 
 The fathers had all their curiosities displayed, 
 consisting of a show-box like Mr. Gray's and 
 some microscopes, and things of that kind, by 
 which it appeared that that science is but in its 
 infancy in this country, and I have heard since, 
 that even these things they had got but lately. 
 However, the generallissimo and his ladies were 
 highly pleased with them. After walking some 
 time in the garden, I left the company with 
 the fathers, and Daniel and I went to a shop 
 to buy Dresden ruffles. I bought a pair of 
 double ruffles, which are just a sheaff and a vast
 
 JOURNEY 195 
 
 large napkin, single, of very pretty work, but not 
 so much open work as yours, for two guineas. 
 
 But to return to what introduced this digression; 
 we had a Bishop and Prince of Osburgh, who keept 
 a coach and twenty-five attendants and servants. 
 He was of the family of Hess Darmstad, and a 
 very civill body, just in his person like Mr. Cun- 
 ninghame the packman. He had been lame from 
 his infancy, and had always two gentlemen as finely 
 dressed as anybody, and very genteell men, and he 
 leaned on their arms. He allways sat with great 
 pleasure and saw the dancing, and when he went 
 out, he hirpled 1 round to all the company, and 
 wished them good-night. 
 
 The only badge of a preist about him was a 
 tonsall 2 on his wigg ; some has this of a bit of black 
 silk, some of a bit of horn or tortyshell, like the 
 head of a snuff-box, but his was made of the hair 
 of his wigg laid down smooth ; it minds me so 
 much of an issue, that I do not like to see it : 
 those who wear their hair has it shaved. They are 
 not all preists who have the tonsall, for that they 
 wear so soon as they are admitted into any order 
 of the church, sub-deacon, or deacon. 
 
 This Prince lived very retired, and phisically, 
 1 Hobbled. 2 Tonsure.
 
 196 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 and had therefore little company at mealls with 
 him, which is indeed little the custom at Spaw for 
 anybody. 
 
 The next family of distinction we had was Sir 
 Thomas Worsly 1 and Lady Betty. He was new 
 come to his fortune by the death of his old father, 
 who, Lady Betty told me, was a great miser, but, 
 when he died, left no ready money, and that he 
 keept them in great straits for money. She was 
 obliged to travell to save money, for they could 
 not live at London, and when they lived in the 
 country, they were like to be eaten up. By what 
 I could understand, they were allowed a thousand 
 pounds a-year, and she had ten thousand pounds : 
 she told us the melancholly circumstances one 
 night, with the tear in her eye. She seemed 
 to be of a very frugall turn as to dress and living ; 
 but how the English folks' money goes is a mystery 
 to me, for it is neither in them nor on them, that 
 I could see. 
 
 Sir Thomas was a good-natured, little, black lad; 
 
 1 Sir James Worsley of Pilewell, member in nine Parliaments 
 for the borough of Newton, died in 1756, and was succeeded 
 by his son Sir Thomas, of Appuldercombe, Isle of Wight. He 
 married in 1749 Elizabeth, daughter of John, 5th Earl of Cork 
 and Orrery, who attained to much distinction in the literary 
 world, and is well remembered as the friend of Dean Swift.
 
 JOURNEY 197 
 
 she was not handsome, and had a sower look. She 
 was Lord Orrery, now Lord Cork's, daughter, and 
 cousine to Lady Cathcart j 1 her mother was daugh- 
 ter to Lord Orkney, so she is half Scots. Both 
 Sir Thomas and her loves a little gaming, and lost 
 about 150 at farro ; she did not lose her money 
 pleasantly, but Sir Thomas did with great patience. 
 In the family with them were Lord Dungarven, 2 
 her eldest brother, and Mr. Hamilton Boyll, to 
 whom the letters 3 are wrote. 
 
 Lord Dungarven is a very genteell little man, 
 married to a lady of great fortune, of the name of 
 Howard, a great bankeir's daughter ; he is ill of 
 convulsion fits, not very violent, but very frequent; 
 they are sometimes so short that it will be off 
 
 1 Jane, daughter of Lord Arch. Hamilton, and wife of the 
 9th Baron Cathcart. 
 
 2 Charles, Lord Dungarvan, eldest son of the 5th Lord Orrery 
 and his wife Lady Henrietta Hamilton, the Earl of Orkney's 
 daughter, according to Burke, married a daughter of Henry 
 Hoare, Esq. of Stourhead ; the name ' Howard ' is obviously a 
 slip. He died in 1759, and was succeeded in the title of Dun- 
 garvan by his brother, the Hon. Hamilton Boyle, mentioned in 
 the text, who became 6th Earl of Cork and Orrery, but lived to 
 enjoy those honours only one year. 
 
 3 Remarks on the Life and Writings of Dr. Jonathan Swift 
 in a Series of Letters to bis Son, the Hon. H. Boyle; by John, 
 Earl of Cork and Orrery. London, 1751.
 
 198 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 before it be perceived ; no part of his body is con- 
 vulsed, but one hand. He took violent exercise, 
 for he was seldom off horseback, but the Spaw 
 brought them on more frequently than before, 
 which they say is always the effect at first. When 
 I left it, he was gone to Aix-la-Chapell, to take a 
 cure from a phisician there, which was a secret, so 
 I have never heard yet if it had any effect. It was 
 a great pity, poor young man, it made them all 
 very low spirited ; his brother Hamilton was just 
 breaking his heart about it : there seemed to be 
 great love and concord in the family ; they made 
 no secret of it, and always, when they spoke of it, 
 were like to cry. 
 
 Mr. Boill is a grave, composed, sweet-tempered 
 like lad as ever I saw. Another member of this 
 family was their cousine, Lord Boill, 1 the speaker 
 of Ireland's son ; he was a thin-featured, red-haired 
 lad, not ill-looked. Folks who knew him said he 
 had humour ; he had a strong Irish brog. He did 
 not join much with others, except at the farro table, 
 where he had no better luck than his neighbours. 
 
 There was another family whose discord amused 
 the company : this consisted of Madam Beaton, 
 
 1 Henry Boyle, Esq., created Earl of Shannon, ijth April 
 1756.
 
 JOURNEY 199 
 
 the collonell's 1 dowager I wrote you of. As she 
 was English, she could assume no title other than 
 dowager [of an] officer of the first rank. With 
 her lived Madamosell Patine, who, being daughter 
 to Count Patine, president of the council of 
 Flanders, called herself a viscountess ; she was a 
 little squinting beauty, very well painted. She had 
 a lover, a Swiss officer, who was pinned to her 
 sleeve, and scandalized Madam Beaton prodigiously, 
 because he visited at all hours. Madam Beaton, 
 I should have told you, lives at Bruxells, for what 
 reason I know not ; she says she cannot affoard to 
 live at London, and that she lost an only son she 
 was very fond of, and could not endure to see any- 
 thing put her in mind of him. 
 
 In this menage was likeways Baron De la Faell, 
 a gentleman from Ghent ; he was almost blind 
 with the cataracks on both his eyes, which gives 
 him a stupid staring look, not at all disagreable to 
 the nature of the man, who is an innocent good- 
 natured body, and put me in mind of Charles 
 Maitland, He learned English from the army 
 when in Ghent, and Scots from the highland 
 regiment, and is very fond of it, and speaks it very 
 
 1 Colonel, or Major Duquerry of the Earl of Stair's Regiment 
 of Dragoons. See post.
 
 200 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 well ; he sings well, and is vastly fond of the Scots 
 songs. 
 
 f How 's a' wi' ye,' ( Good e'en to ye,' f De'il 
 tak ye,' was always his salutation in Scots, when he 
 wanted to show his knowledge in that language. 
 
 This family lived and eat together, and were 
 equall shares. Madam Beaton had a man, Patine 
 had a maid, and La Faell, to be equall, insisted 
 that he should have a surgeon who was there into 
 his share. He and his surgeon eat as much as all 
 the rest, and drank twice as much. Madam Beaton 
 told everybody how she was oppressed, and that 
 she had paid for a hundred bottles of wine, and 
 had drunk but seven of them for her share ; how- 
 ever, she paid and grumbled. At last she set off 
 her man, and the surgeon fell into a quarrell, and 
 run away ; and that revolution bred such a calcula- 
 tion of expence, which so far surpassed all their 
 arithmetick, that she left the menage, and fed 
 herself. 
 
 I am of oppinion, that when people of exactness 
 go into a menage together, the parties should be 
 weighted before and after dinner, and pay accord- 
 ingly ; for the odds of stomachs make great 
 heart-burnings, though they do not produce open 
 complaints.
 
 JOURNEY 201 
 
 La Faell told me his family was very noble : 
 his father was married to a second wife, who had 
 two daughters to him ; he had two brothers, and 
 was the eldest. His father loved the second son, 
 (who, he owned, was a much better fellow than 
 himself, and approved of his father's partiality,) 
 for which reason the father was not fond of his 
 getting a wife ; and for the mother-in-law, when- 
 ever his marrying or any of his brothers' was 
 spoken of, she made a noise in the house, as he 
 expressed it. He was much in love with a fair 
 widow, and asked his father's leave to court her, 
 for she was very rich, but his father would not 
 allow him, as she was not noble ; but he allowed 
 him to court another lady, but she would not have 
 him, because he was blind. 
 
 c At this rate, baron,' says I, f I fear they will 
 nick you out of a wife altogether.' 
 
 c I am afraid of that myself,' said he, ' for I 
 should like very much to be married.' 
 
 He used to follow Lady Fanny 1 and I to walk 
 up the hill, and when it turned duskish, he saw not 
 a stime ; 2 so, when we came down again, and came 
 to a steep 
 
 1 Lady Frances Steuart. 
 
 2 Styme, a glimpse, a particle. JAMIESON.
 
 202 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 f Sit down now, baron, and hirsle on your 
 hunkers,' which he did. 
 
 * Now, you may get up again ; ' and in this 
 manner we brought him home. I says to him one 
 day 
 
 You pretend a great deall of complesance for 
 us, and yet I am informed you think we are to go 
 to hell, and that you are not the least sorry.' 
 
 c To be sure,' says he, f the church obliges us to 
 beleive so.' 
 
 f And do you obey such an order?' says I. 
 
 He could not say he did not beleive the church, 
 and would not say that we would go to hdl, so 
 was greatly puzzled ; but next day he had taken 
 advice about it, and, when I put the question to 
 him again, he said there was but one God and one 
 religion, and I was of a different religion. 
 
 f Wherein do you and I differ?' says I ; f what 
 is your creed ? ' So he repeated it. 
 
 * Now,' says I, I will let you hear my creed ;' 
 and, to his great amazement, it was the same. 
 
 1 Now,' says I, f wherein do we differ?' 
 ( You do not obey the pope,' says he. 
 
 * Why, the pope and I are perfectly agreed,' 
 said I ; * [I] beleive the same creed with him, and 
 since we have the same faith, what should send
 
 JOURNEY 203 
 
 him to heaven and me to hell, providing we put 
 our faith in practice equally ?' 
 
 But this he could not answer, as I suppose he 
 had never thought on it before, but [said] that his 
 church was the true church, and he would pray for 
 my conversion. 
 
 There was a man making a tolerable figure when 
 I came there, whose credit was all overturned by 
 an unfortunate accident : his name was De Marr. 
 He had a quarrell with a man some time ago, and 
 this man came to Spaw to challenge him to fight : 
 Madam De Marr keept her husband in the house, 
 so that the man could not see him. At last she 
 ventured out with him to the publick walk, and 
 up came the man to speak to De Marr when 
 madam flew to the man, took his cane out of his 
 hand, and laid ten thousand on him before the 
 whole company. Upon this the man left the place, 
 and De Marr was so blown upon, that nobody 
 spoke either to him or her, nor did they ever 
 come to the publick room. 
 
 There was a most curious wife, Madam Hussy ; 
 her husband, the collonell, was in the Queen's 
 service, and a most sensible well-bred man, minded 
 me greatly of Sandy Mure. 1 They were both 
 
 1 Captain Alexander Mure, one of the seventeen children
 
 204 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 Irish ; she was of the O'Neills, Kings of Ulster; 
 she had been married to a very old rich man, but 
 she said his freinds had cheated her out of the 
 money she should have got at his death, and she 
 hated the old man, and would not be at the pains 
 to flatter him. 
 
 f I was a very good-natured woman,' said she to 
 me, c till after I married Collonell Hussy, and, 
 ever since, I am given to violent passions and 
 weaknesses in my head ; sometimes it is as heavy 
 as lead, and sometimes as light as a feather ; and 
 I have violent vapours.' 
 
 She was very like a cat in her appearance, and 
 anybody who would joke or flatter her might say 
 anything to her. She was very fond of all our 
 party, but to others she fufFed and kindled, if they 
 but opened their mouth. There was a violent 
 enmity betwixt her and Madam Beaton, yet they 
 could never be separate. The attachment was the 
 cards, at which they never failed to squabble, and 
 swear they would never play together again. Hussy 
 could not subsist without cards, and yet she turned 
 
 of James Mure of Rhoddens, was wounded at Fontenoy. He 
 was then Lieutenant; he retired from the service at an early 
 stage of his career ' shattered with wounds,' and spent the last 
 twenty years of his life at Caldwell, where he died in 1 79 1 , 
 aged upwards of 90 years. Caldwell Collection, vol. ii. p. 335.
 
 JOURNEY 205 
 
 so doited 1 after the second party, that she re- 
 nounced, and did not know a card. 
 
 The collonell had the genteellest, softest way of 
 laughing, and letting others laugh at her, you can 
 imagine ; she was vastly fond of him, and we liked 
 her for his sake, but nobody else would be at the 
 pains, which made her very fond of us. 
 
 She gave Mr. Nidham a ducat to play at farro for 
 her. The collonell bid him never tell her that 
 he win, till the bank was gone ; he played with 
 caution and judgment, and win her twenty-six, but 
 gave her them before the bank gave up, and she 
 lost the half of them in one night. She never 
 failed to tell me of a law-sute she had, and wanted 
 to let me understand how much money she had ; 
 but though it was what I wanted much to know, 
 because they lived very well, yet I could never 
 obtain the knowledge of it, and at last I found the 
 reason was, she did not know herself. 
 
 She had a terrible enmity to Madam Cresnar, 
 the British resident's wife at Liege. One night 
 at a ball, Lady Betty Worsly rose to dance, and 
 Madam Hussy sat down in her seat. 
 
 f That is Lady Betty's chair,' said Mrs. Cresnar. 
 
 'Lady Betty!' says Hussy, * is there any seat 
 
 1 Stupified, bamboozled.
 
 2o6 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 in this room belongs to anybody ? or is there any 
 Lady Betty better than me ? Impudent woman ! 
 but I beleive the woman's in liquor/ 
 
 The collonell has been in all the emperor's wars 
 these thirty years, has had the plague in Hungary, 
 has been over all Europe, and speaks all the 
 languages, and never got an wound. 
 
 I assure you it made my heart sore to see so 
 many brave men as I have seen since I came to 
 this country, obliged to seek a living in forreign 
 service on the accouut of their religion, when their 
 service is so much wanted at home. There is just 
 now Generall Brown, 1 an Irishman, and Generall 
 Keith, a Scotsman, commanding the armies upon 
 which the eyes of all Europe are turned at 
 present, and righting it out so fairly, that both 
 sides claim the victory ; and we must take up with 
 
 1 While Mrs. Calderwood was writing, Field-Marshal James 
 Keith, that splendid Scots soldier, in command of the Prussian 
 army, was confronting in the field an Irish soldier not less 
 distinguished, namely Ulysses Maximillian, Count Brown, who 
 in the cause of the Empress was resisting the Prussian invasion 
 of Bohemia. There never had been a time when the mother 
 country was in greater need or the services of such men. 
 Within little more than eighteen months after the date of these 
 journals, they had both fallen, fighting manfully for foreign 
 sovereigns.
 
 JOURNEY 207 
 
 a Bing, a Blackny, or a Bland, three Bs 1 that, 
 though one do not know them from a bull-foot, 2 
 there is no great wonder. 
 
 We had a Generall Brown at Spaw, collonell of 
 the first regiment of horse in the service, some 
 great man's bastard, a good body, but old and 
 paralitick, and any old wife would cast him over 
 her shoulder. Many a French and Austrian 
 officer was there, that looked like men of busness, 
 for the cure of old wounds, for many a hash and 
 slash they had upon them, and withered like they 
 were ; and polite, well-behaved men. 
 
 There was a Prussian officer who spoke English 
 pretty well ; he had left the service, and did not 
 like the King at all. He was very fond of con- 
 versing with the English, and of reading English 
 
 1 Admiral the Hon.John Byngwas at this time under the charges 
 which resulted in his death in the spring of the following year. 
 
 Lieutenant General Sir William Blakeney, K.B., had dis- 
 tinguished himself by his defence of Stirling Castle in 1 746 ; and 
 the surrender of Fort St. Philip in 1756. He was raised to the 
 Peerage of Ireland as Baron Blakeney the same year, and died in 
 1761, aged 91, when the title became extinct. 
 
 Lieutenant General Humphry Bland was Governor of 
 Gibraltar in 1 749 ; and succeeded General Lord Mark Kerr as 
 Governor of Edinburgh Castle, 1752, holding that office till 
 1758. 
 
 2 In Scotland it is proverbially the acme of stupidity ' not to 
 know a B from a Bull's foot.'
 
 208 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 books ; he had read Clarissa, and thought it the 
 finest performance ever was. All Richison's 1 books 
 are translated, and much admired abroad ; but for 
 Feilding's, the forreigners have no notion of them, 
 and do not understand them, as the manners are 
 so intirely English. 
 
 It is very surprising to see how ignorant two 
 neighbouring nations as France and England, who 
 has so much correspondence with each other, are 
 of each other's constitution and circumstances : we 
 do not understand anything of the parliament of 
 Paris, nor of their disputes regarding prerogative, 
 nor the limits of the government on either side ; 
 nor do they know more about ours. I was present 
 one day, when Sir James was discoursing with 
 Monsieur Doubinie, 2 the French resident at Liege, 
 about the odds betwixt the powers of the French 
 and English parliaments. I did not understand 
 much of their conversation, but I could observe 
 that Doubinie was not much instructed, and said 
 to Sir James, when he went away 
 
 1 1 think your minister did [not] understand the 
 matter you talked of.' 
 
 1 Samuel Richardson, no doubt. Sir Charles Grandison'\&& 
 appeared in 1753, Clarissa five years before that; Tom Jones 
 and Joseph Andrews before the Rebellion. 
 
 2 In Scotland the illustrious name of D'Aubigny was often so 
 spelt.
 
 JOURNEY 209 
 
 'That's no wonder,' said he, 'the devil one 
 Frenchman ever I met with could comprehend our 
 constitution, nor anything about us, but that 
 England is a rich and a wise nation ; and, though 
 our folks at home think the French have conceived 
 designs of invading or conquering them, they 
 would just as soon have such upon the moon, and 
 think it as possible as the other.' I wish this war 
 do not open their eyes. 
 
 c But indeed,' said he, { the English are even 
 with them, for they are as totally ignorant of their 
 affairs, and understand their constitution as little ; 
 only they differ in this respect, that England thinks 
 France weaker than it is, and France thinks 
 England stronger.' 
 
 I wish they do not both see the truth before this 
 war is at an end. 
 
 This Monsieur Doubinie and his lady being at 
 war with Mrs. Cressnar, the English resident's 
 lady, it was impossible that they could have any 
 correspondence, not so much as bowing in a 
 publick place; and what augmented Madam 
 Cressnar's spleen was, that a daughter she had 
 jumped the window, and run away at Liege, and 
 turned a capucine : so French and papaistry 
 together were too much.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 The Capucines at Spa : Catholic Devotions : The 
 ' Ten Commands ' / At the f Benediction ' : A 
 JACOBITE Community : Their servants' French : 
 Sir Richard Lyttelton : Mr. Ward: Mr. 
 Burrage : A Hungarian Princess : Industries of 
 Spa: Economies: The Ardennes : Father NEED- 
 HAM'S experiments : Toung Townley : Move 
 towards Brussels : Chaude Fount aine : Gordons 
 of Cowbairdy at Liege: Father Steuart : A 
 young monk of St. Benedict: Tirlemont to 
 Brussels. 
 
 THE first visit we received at Spaw was from the 
 capucines, to invite us to their garden, which is a 
 very neat little thing; I have made it be put on 
 my quadrill box. They have a jet of water, and 
 about it four shades of ewe, which is very agreeable, 
 as there 's always some of them shaded from the 
 sun. There are ten in all in this convent, man- 
 tained upon that poor country, and what the
 
 MRS. C ALDER WOOD'S JOURNEY 211 
 
 strangers leave them, which is very little, taking 
 off the English, for the folks of that country are 
 not very generous to them. 
 
 There was an English gentleman who was 
 severall seasons at Spaw, and he used to give them 
 a great feast every year, and fill them all drunk, 
 and make them all dance like mad ; one of them 
 could play on the fiddle, and the Englishman and 
 the father-guardian always opened the ball by a 
 minuet : now they get only a feast from old Mr. 
 Hay every new-year's day. The people in that 
 country may affoard to mantain some of these 
 begging orders, for they pay very few taxes to 
 their governours, and indeed it would be too much, 
 if they paid what other countries did. 
 
 The church livings are but very small, that is, 
 the curates and others, only they have a good 
 many of them to every church, for they have 
 close duty, one mass after another, from five 
 o'clock in the morning till twelve mid-day, and 
 then salve and benediction at six, and all the rest 
 of the afternoon is employed in confession, so that 
 it would be too hard work for one or two in great 
 churches. They have a great number of clergy to 
 them, as there will be three or four masses going 
 on at one time. I used to go in sometimes to the
 
 212 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 benediction ; they had very good musick, and a 
 preist went round the church with a besome, like 
 what we sweep below the beds with, a boy carried 
 after him a bucket full of holy water, and the 
 preist came whip, whip, to every hand with it ; 
 but he was very sparing. They only received it in 
 imagination, for I was hard by him when he passed, 
 and, though he intended me a double portion, as 
 having most need, being a heretick, yet there was 
 not one drop came upon me. 
 
 I cannot understand why people come to church 
 for their private devotion ; I thought it had only 
 been the common folks ; but one day coming 
 through the church, which I often did for a near 
 cut, I saw my friend Mr. Nidham in it, quite 
 alone, most serious at his devotion ; I declare I 
 thought shame ; . . . but his back was to me, and 
 he had his head down. 
 
 It is only those who cannot read that use the 
 beads, and I cannot see what great use there can be 
 for such repetitions of the same thing, for there are 
 five beads plain, and at every one of these they say, 
 c Haill, Mary, full of grace ! the Lord is with you.' 
 Then comes a carved bead, or one tipped with 
 silver, and that is a pater noster, and there are 
 about fifty of the first, and ten of the last ; at the
 
 JOURNEY 213 
 
 same time, they do not understand a word of what 
 they are saying. 
 
 When the boys were put to school at Spaw, they 
 got a catechizem to learn upon ; in it is the Lord's 
 prayer, creed, and ten commands ; but when I read 
 it, I was surprised. Their second command is our 
 third, and yet there were ten, which I thought was 
 laying nine men in eight beds ; but, upon reading, 
 I found they split the tenth into two, and make a 
 difference between your coveting your neighbour's 
 wife, and his ox or ass ; and for our second, they 
 turn it out altogether, and say it is comprehended 
 in the first. Now, this I really commend them for, 
 as I do not like to see folks take some things in a 
 literall sense, and explain away others ; whatever 
 people find they cannot comply with, they should 
 deny its ever being a precept. 
 
 How foolish must a man look, to be condemned 
 out of his own Bible ! for which reason I am sur- 
 prised that it has never been thought of to print a 
 Bible for the polite part of the world, and leave 
 out everything that can in the least hamper a man 
 in his pleasures, and this would put an end to in- 
 fidelity at once, for people are obliged to deny all, 
 because they cannot admit some parts. 
 
 Now, as the people of Scotland have not the
 
 214 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 least tendency to worship anything, far less images, 
 let them take in this long command, which the 
 catholick church has cast out, and divide it into 
 three to preserve the number, and cast out the 
 third and fourth ; or, if they chuse to cast out the 
 seventh, which indeed I see no great use for, so 
 long as there are so many single persons of both 
 sexes, they may divide the fifth into two, which 
 will be vastly easy obeyed by a great many, and 
 by those especially who have most need of com- 
 mands, viz. those who have neither father nor 
 mother; and I never saw anybody refuse to honour 
 their parents after they were dead. 
 
 I went into the benediction at the capucines one 
 night : they have no musick but their own voices, 
 which is horrid ; some sat, some kneeled, and I did 
 not know when to do either : Lady Nell and Mr. 
 Andrew Hay l were with me. At last in came an 
 old Jesuite, who was at Spaw for health, and he sat 
 down by me, so [I] was resolved to do as he did ; 
 I found he used freedom with his friends, and only 
 kneeled at the elevation. Mr. Hay, that he might 
 
 1 Mr. Andrew Hay of Rannes is described as an intimate 
 friend of Sir James Steuart's, whose society * was considered 
 among the most valuable consolations of his long exile.' Memoir 
 of Sir James and Lady Frances Steuart. Greenock, 1818, 
 p. 128.
 
 JOURNEY 215 
 
 be sure he was right, kneeled all the time ; but as 
 he is a prodigious size, he was as tall as anybody 
 when on his knees, and the folks thought he was 
 standing, and the common folks were in such a 
 passion, and held such a tittle-tatling to each 
 other, that I could not understand what they were 
 about, as my back was to him. After it was over, 
 they made a terrible complaint to this old Jesuite, 
 who composed them, and said we were strangers, 
 and did not know the custom : Mr. Hay was like 
 to go mad that he had hurt all his knees to please 
 them, to so little purpose. 
 
 This Mr. Hay is a very good lad, was concerned 
 in the 1745, and stayed at home for some years 
 after, but was so remarquable by his hight, that 
 he was often pursued from place to place, and 
 obliged to come abroad. He is the tallest man 
 ever I saw that was not a show, and looks rather 
 taller than he is,' as he is not well made. 
 
 He, with Mr. Gordon and his wife, and Sir 
 James's family, we found at our arrivall, dined 
 together, and got their diner from a publick- house 
 at so much a head, their three skillens being thirty 
 pence, but our twenty-one pence. They com- 
 plained they were not well served, and as the land- 
 lady in our house was a working body, and could
 
 216 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 dress meat, we resolved to provide the meat, and 
 let it be drest in our house, and dine all together. 
 Lady Fanny, as she could speak to her, ordered 
 and dispursed the money ; we were hardly so 
 cheap, but then we were better served, and had 
 dishes of our own country, by John Rattray's 
 assistance. 
 
 We often got good sport with John's French, 
 and the mistakes that happened betwixt him and 
 her. They wanted to have a haggas, but John 
 said we must set our hearts bye that, for he had 
 seen nothing like meall in that town. That day 
 Mr. Calderwood had bid the landlady get him 
 some hony, so, when she was counting with John 
 at night, there was an article for miel. 
 
 c Meal ! ' says John, e devil a grain have I seen 
 in your country ; no, no, Madam, no, no,' and 
 shook his head. 
 
 Upon this she came to Mr. Calderwood, who 
 put John right, and told the woman what he had 
 mistaken it for ; upon which she produced meal, 
 to the great joy of the company, who, by this 
 mistake, got a haggas. 
 
 I asked John one day how they called the maid 
 of the house ? 
 
 f I don't know,' says he, c how they call the
 
 JOURNEY 217 
 
 wemen servants here, but they call us men dumb- 
 sticks.' 
 
 ( Troth,' says I, c you 're really well named at 
 present' 
 
 However, John was very happy, for there were 
 many Scots and English dumbsticks there, with 
 whom he made merry. . . . Then comes Peggie 
 Rainy. 
 
 c O ! sir,' says she, f I was learning French with 
 Mr. Hair and Mr. Line, and you laught me out 
 of [it] ; I would have been a fine speaker, if it had 
 not been for you, that you said I was too old, and 
 now I 'm older, and will never learn.' 
 
 Indeed, she said true, for, if she was told 
 how to ask for a thing, she forgot or she was 
 at the foot of the stair. Then she thought 
 she would do like daft Jock, and repeat it all 
 the way : so, one day she was wanting to walk 
 to a fountain called the Tone/efj and, after being 
 directed the road, was desired to ask anybody 
 she met, if that was the road to Tonelet, and 
 thought she had got a fast grip of ' le chemein 
 a la Tonelet.' 
 
 f Chambeing toutalon? says she to every one she 
 met, and returned without finding the place. 
 
 ( Aye,' says she, c I that came from Edinburgh
 
 2i8 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 to Liege as if I had been led by a string, not to 
 find a place within a mile of Spaw ! ' 
 
 After the Spencers were gone, the English 
 turned more sociable, and we were often together 
 when we were few. Sir Richard Littleton, 1 brother 
 to Sir George Littleton 2 one of our ministers, Mr. 
 Ward, son to my Lord Ward and member for I 
 forget the place, and Mr. Burrage, 3 resident to the 
 different courts of Germany, and some others, were 
 vastly fond of Sir James, and, after he was able to 
 creep out, would never want 4 him ; and, as he 
 could not go much back and forward, the ladies 
 came down, and drunk tea in Sir Richard's in the 
 afternoon. 
 
 1 Sir Richard Lyttelton, F.R.S., Knight of the Bath in 1753, 
 was appointed Treasurer of His Majesty's Jewels in 1756. His 
 wife was Rachel, eldest daughter of the Duke of Bedford and 
 widow of Scroop, 1st Duke of Bridgewater : he died in 1770. 
 
 2 Sir George Lyttelton, Bart., was Secretary to the Prince of 
 Wales in 1737 ; and afterwards filled the offices of Treasurer of 
 the Navy, Cofferer of the Household, and Privy Councillor; 
 and in 1755 became Chancellor of the Exchequer. He was 
 created Lord Lyttelton, Baron of Frankley, in 1757; and died 
 in 1773. 
 
 3 Mr. Burrage is described as ' British Envoy to some of the 
 States on the Rhine,' and as having shown much kindness to 
 Sir James Steuart at Frankfort in 1756-57. Mem. of Sir James 
 and Lady Frances Steuart, p. 1 1 6. 
 
 4 Scot., be without him.
 
 JOURNEY 219 
 
 Sir Richard is vastly merry ; he was aid-de-camp 
 to Lord Stair, and knows all the Scots folks ; a 
 well-looked, honest-like man, hardly forty, but so 
 miserably afflicted with the gout and rheumatizim, 
 that he is quite lame. 
 
 Mr. Ward was a very good lad, and sung very 
 well, and had a great many Scots songs he was 
 very fond of. 
 
 Mr. Burrage was a glum-like carle, but they 
 said had a great deall of humour after he got a 
 glass ; he perswaded Sir James to change the place 
 he intended to go to, and, instead of Mayance, to 
 go to Francfort, where he resides. 
 
 But I forgot to tell you of a princess we had, 
 Princess Sinsokie. She is of the Palfies 1 of 
 
 1 The family of which this Princess seems to have been a 
 member was one of the most ardent in attachment to the 
 Empress. 
 
 The aged and infirm Count Palfy, Captain General and 
 Director of Hungary, in 1744 occupied the frontier of Silesia 
 with 30,000 men in the cause of Maria Theresa. In token of 
 her gratitude the Oueen sent him several valuable gifts, including 
 a gold hiked sword and a ring set with diamonds ; and wrote : 
 
 ' Father Palfy, Receive this horse worthy of being mounted 
 by the most faithful of my Hungarians. Accept this sword to 
 defend me against my enemies ; and take this ring as a mark 
 of my affection for you. MARIA THERESA.' Gentleman's 
 Magazine, May, 1744.
 
 220 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 Hungary, a widow, and got leave from the 
 empress (as she stays at Vienna) to go to Spaw for 
 her health ; but she, it seems, only wanted to go 
 to Paris, where she had stayed out her time of 
 leave, and came to Spaw that she might say she 
 was there. She desired Lady Weems to write to 
 Lady Fanny that she was coming to Spaw, and 
 brought an abbe alongst with her ; he called and 
 informed [her] she was come, but when Lady 
 Fanny called for her, she was malade with her 
 journy. 
 
 She came to the first ball, and danced with great 
 keenness, and very well. She had a very showy, 
 princess-like figure ; she was very tall, and very 
 thin, and vastly straight and upright, which makes 
 a better figure in this country, where everybody, 
 from their want of stays, goes two-fold. She 
 appeared at a distance, by her figure, to be very 
 young, but when you saw her near, she was older. 
 She was dressed very plain, in a stript lutstring 
 negligie, without a hoop, but her head was curled 
 and powdered, and she was strongly painted, and, 
 being very fair, cast a great dash, and tript it so 
 light, that she was like a fairy princess, but so con- 
 ceated a creature, and so absolutly ingrossed with 
 herself, that when folk spoke to her, she did not
 
 JOURNEY 221 
 
 hear what they said, and she made up to nobody, 
 but danced, and then went to the glass to see that 
 all was in its place. 
 
 She stayed eight days, but never came out 
 again, nor saw nobody ; returned Lady Fanny's 
 visit by a card, as was the custom, and stayed close 
 shut up with her abbe, who came not out neither. 
 It was reported that she said people used too much 
 freedom with her at the ball, but what sort nobody 
 could find out, for she sat like a stick, except when 
 she was dancing. 
 
 I think this, with my letters from Spaw, may be 
 account enough of the place ; as for the manner of 
 living, it cannot be expensive, and things are as 
 reasonable there as can be expected in such a place. 
 The whole imployment of the inhabitants is 
 making and japaning toillet boxes, and things of 
 that kind, and working bead and bugell work, all 
 which they affoard very cheap. The boxes, 
 I wrote you what they cost, and for the beads, 
 a necklace, point and ear-rings, cost seventeen 
 pence half-penny of our money ; but mum for 
 that, as Peggy Rainy has a cargo coming home to 
 sell, which I think may sell for a crown the set, 
 and be cheap in Edinburgh.
 
 222 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 These Spaw manufactories go everywhere, and 
 yet I never saw them in Edinburgh. There is at 
 least twenty, or I beleive thirty folks who work 
 all the year round in that japan, and in every shop 
 you see numbers of sets one day, and hardly any in 
 a day or two. No town in that country rivalls 
 another in its manufactors ; they are made nowhere 
 else but at Spaw. 
 
 There is a famous turner there, and he turns 
 things in ivory that would exceed beleif, if one 
 was not to see it ; things like oblisks, with a spire 
 no greater than a pin in thickness, and rings upon 
 [it] like horse-hair; then the grosser part like 
 basket-work, that, when you look through it, 
 there are scrolls and squares within other, till the 
 inmost is no bigger than a pea, and all turned out 
 of one peice of ivory, which exceeds what I could 
 imagine. 
 
 The people in the place live very poorly. Our 
 landlord was Mr. Peter Hurlly, burgomaster, a 
 fine, civil, intelligent, working body, a japaner. 
 Their manner of living was [this ; in] the morning, 
 at six o'clock, they drank tea, without milk, or 
 sugar, or bread, this they qualified with a dram of 
 genevar ; about ten they took breakfast, a sort of 
 bread mixed with rye, which they eat with butter ;
 
 JOURNEY 223 
 
 dined at twelve on cabbage, potatoes, or kidney 
 beans, or whatever green trash was in season, or 
 sallad ; and, through the day, if they were hungry, 
 eat some bread and butter. The landlady said 
 she eat no flesh through the whole year ; and it was 
 [never] in the house but on great feast days. By 
 their way of living, they should turn rich, but they 
 are cast so often idle with holydays, that I wonder 
 they do not starve ; then they must wear their best 
 clothes ; and firing is very dear in winter. Their 
 houses are very thin, and must be cold ; the rooms 
 are large, and badly furnished. The room-rents 
 are cheaper than at Morrat, like about seven 
 shillings a week for the bed-rooms, and less for the 
 smaller rooms ; every house has a good low room 
 for dining in, which they call a salle. 
 
 As Lady Fanny was to stay after us, she wanted 
 a house with two fire rooms with beds, for they 
 have in every house one bed-chamber with a fire. 
 In one house I was much diverted with the man's 
 architecture ; he told her 
 
 ' I can put a fire in this room if you please, for 
 there is the chimney of the one below coming up 
 the wall ; it is only making a hole in it, and puting 
 a hearth in.' 
 
 The climate of the Ardens is reckoned the worst
 
 224 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 in all these countries, but it was tollerable weather 
 most of the time we were there. The weather had 
 been very hot before we came, and they said it was 
 very disagreeable, but I found no heat after ; some- 
 times it would rain and thunder a little for two or 
 three days, but when that went over, the weather 
 continued fair, and seldom showers, but when it 
 did rain, it was very heavy. 
 
 There was no good fruit to be had ; none 
 grew there but apples. Some geans were brought 
 from other places, very good ; but neither peach, 
 appricock, nor plumb, that were ripe. Plenty of 
 fine nuts, and the fillberts ready before the common 
 kind ; but all the fruit in that country is very 
 wormy, and some of the finest nuts had a great 
 worm in the kirnall. 
 
 I have mentioned Mr, Nidham severall times, 
 without any particular account of him or his pupile. 
 Mr. Nidham is an Englishman, and a preist ; he 
 was governour to Mr. Howard of Corbie : he has 
 travelled a good deall, and a very sensible con- 
 versable man, and very friendly. He is a member 
 of the Royall Society, and is author of a book 
 upon naturall philosiphy, which is much esteemed ; 
 it is overturning all the sistem of every thing being
 
 JOURNEY 225 
 
 produced by generation, and nothing by corrup- 
 tion ; and [he] has made many curious experiments 
 to prove his sistem. 1 For instance, he has extracted 
 the juice of meat, corked it up in a bottle, set this 
 bottle into such a heat as must destroy any sort of 
 egg, or principle of life it could contain, and that 
 juice, after this, by corruption has produced living 
 creatures ; and many other proofs of his doctrine. 
 He is a scholar in many other sciences, but his 
 travelling and taking care of his puple imploy 
 most of his time at present. 
 
 Mr. Townly is a well-looking, sweet-like lad, 
 about nineteen ; he has been in France since he 
 was six years old, but, till Mr. Nidham came to 
 him four years ago, had never learned the French, 
 as he was in an English colledge. What way 
 they had taken to make him learn, Mr. Nidham 
 says God knows, but he had such an aversion at 
 all sort of learning or instruction of any kind, that 
 it was very hard for him to get any good at all 
 done to him ; but from his care and contrivance, 
 he has got him to know a good deall, but mostly 
 by the ear, and this even yet must be conveyed to 
 him by stealth. 
 
 { For instance,' says he, f when we are alone, I 
 
 1 See Note, p. 158. 
 P
 
 226 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 dare not come upon any instructive subject, other- 
 ways he thinks it is a lesson, and he dislikes it ; 
 but the way I do [is,] if I can get a third hand, I 
 converse with them upon any subject I would 
 chuse to inculcate into Mr. Townly, and then,' 
 says he, c he listens to it, and takes it up, and 
 makes it his own, and I have often the pleasure of 
 hearing him bring it out in conversation, or some- 
 times he will inform me of things I have told him 
 in this way.' 
 
 Mr. Townly is very bashful and grave, and has 
 no liking to anything in particular, and I think 
 seems to be one of little good or ill. His mother 
 told Mr. Nidham that, when he was young, instead 
 of play with his brothers, he used to sit by her 
 and cut paper, or any such thing as that. I have 
 often observed that the mind and body of folks 
 are mismarrowed, 1 and some men should have been 
 women, and he, I think, is one. 
 
 Mr. Nidham left Spaw before us, and advised 
 Sir James to come to Bruxells, where he could get 
 his son very good education ; but he was so bent 
 on learning him the German, that he would not 
 do it. We thought ourselves too great a body to 
 venture into the empire, when kings were coming 
 
 1 111 assorted.
 
 JOURNEY 227 
 
 into towns when the folks knew nothing of the 
 matter; and being so long used to live in an 
 island, [we liked no] such neighbours. It is ill 
 enough in Scotland, where the fashion is not to 
 send word you are coming to dine, but worse yet, 
 not to send word that they are coming to turn you 
 out of your house ; so, as Mr. Nidham had com- 
 mended Bruxells, we thought it best to come here, 
 as France (who is the only person disturbs this 
 place) was in league with it. But when folks are 
 in health, and can speak to every one they meet, 
 they may do many things we could not venture 
 upon. 
 
 However, my heart was long upon following Sir 
 James ; but our Jamie happened to catch cold at 
 Spaw, and took one of his short feverish fitts : the 
 small-pox were in the town, and I sent for the 
 doctor of the place, and there Sir James, Mr. 
 Calderwood, and Lady Fanny, must all interpret 
 the consultation. 
 
 * God help me/ thinks I, f what a work is this ! 
 if we get a German doctor, not one of us will can 
 speak to him, and the misinterpretation of a word 
 may cost a body's life.' 
 
 Besides, they have little commerce with the 
 English and their constitution, and this put such a
 
 228 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 fear to my heart, I resolved on Bruxells, where 
 there was two English doctors ; and, as the small- 
 pox was in Spaw, we made all haste to leave it. 
 
 We set out the 2oth September on two cariolls, 
 and came to a place called Chode-Fountain, within 
 three miles of Liege : we intended to take the boat 
 from thence, and go down the river to Liege, but 
 as the night was cold we stayed still there. The 
 place is named from the warm baths, which are 
 much run upon ; the water is pumped up in leaden 
 pumps, so hot that it must be mixed with cold 
 water before it can be used. There is a range of 
 baths, all in little closets, very well contrived, with 
 pipes of hot or cold water as you please, and you 
 have the bath for a skillen, and a fire to dress at. 
 
 This place is the prettiest, most romantick thing 
 I ever saw ; all up and down the river, for a good 
 way, the banks are so close, that there is but a road 
 below them on the one side ; but where this place 
 stands, they cast out on every side like a cemi- 
 circle, the bounds of a haugh of an aiker of ground, 
 on each side the river. On the one side a large 
 good house with the baths, and other houses, such 
 as stables, etc. ; on the other, which forms a court, 
 a garden behind the house, and the little haugh on
 
 JOURNEY 229 
 
 the other side before the banks, rising very steep 
 round it, covered with wood. 
 
 This place belongs to some man about Liege, 
 who lets it, and it is used as a tavern, and the best 
 I ever saw. The folks from Liege occupy it close 
 by dining there, or stay some time for the baths. 
 I took the benefit of a bath, and found it very 
 pleasant. It is near here that all the guns are 
 made, and there are severall iron milns for bating 
 iron for them. There are some walks cut in the 
 wood, and I thought one might pass two or three 
 weeks there very agreeably. The woods are very 
 pretty, nothing scraggy, and there was not a dis- 
 colloured leaf at that time. 
 
 We had travelled through a cold moorish country, 
 and very slow, where our driver walked a- foot, and 
 we were very hungry. It was four o'clock, and 
 we went straight to the kitchen, where every one 
 was set at their tea, a number of odd-like bodies, 
 like boatmen and carriers, for every mortall drinks 
 tea. Meat of all kinds was ready to dress, and we 
 had our dinner so soon, as it had been done by the 
 virtue of hocus pocus. We had, next day, a coach 
 from Liege, and the road, as I wrote you, was one 
 continued orchard or hop-garden, and bleach- 
 fields.
 
 230 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 When we came to Liege, I went to see Mrs. 
 Gordon, and she is lodged in a very bad house, 
 which threw a damp on my spirits, as I was to pass 
 the winter in this country ; I was affraid we would 
 get no better at Bruxells. She had a low parlour 
 entered off a small open place, to that adjoined a 
 kitchen ; from that you must go out, and up a 
 stair, part of which was open to the air, and then 
 were two rooms, one within another; the inmost 
 was her bed-chamber, with a brick floor. I told 
 her we were going to Bruxells ; she said they 
 stayed at Liege for the benefit of coals, that 
 wood was the fire at Bruxells, and that all the 
 houses smoaked most terribly : I cannot say I 
 was pleased with that. She paid for that house, 
 and the smallest quantity of such furniture as you 
 never saw, nothing but wooden chairs, 19 sterling 
 a-year. 
 
 We sent to enquire after Father Daniel, but 
 was informed that he and all the students were in 
 their retreat : this retreat was shutting themselves 
 up in their own rooms for a week, which they do 
 once a-year, to examine their consciences, during 
 which time their meat is brought them, and they 
 see nobody, not one another. I went up to the 
 colledge and called for the rector, to enquire at
 
 JOURNEY 231 
 
 him the footing of the colledge at Bruxells. He 
 was very civill, and told me that Daniel could not 
 appear. I suppose he would commit a new sin by 
 grudging his retreat at that time. Father Steuart 
 came down and saw us. 
 
 We intended to stay but one night, but Mr. 
 and Mrs. Gordon pressed us so much to pass a 
 day with them, that we staid two nights. Mrs. 
 Gordon gave me that flower straw, which I hope 
 is come to your hand ; she got it from a lady, who 
 took it from a nun. Just as I had got it, a gentle- 
 man alighted at the inn, who I had left at Spaw, 
 intending to pass some time there. This was one 
 Mr. Hatton, consul at Ostend, who had got a 
 sudden call to England. I had only seen him 
 once, and he asked me if I had any commands for 
 England ? 
 
 4 Sir,' says I, c there has nobody paid me that 
 compliment, but whom I have taken at their word. 
 I have just got a flower here I intend to send 
 home ; if you will carry it I will be very much 
 obliged to you, and if it is any trouble to you, I 
 hope you will as freely tell me.' 
 
 He said it would be no trouble, so I got a box 
 in all haste, and gave it him ; but I thought he 
 looked as if he did not expect I would give him
 
 232 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 any commands. He said he was sorry it was 
 not prettier. 
 
 f It is going/ says I, f where it will be accepted, 
 and I shall send a prettier next time.' 
 
 We took the diligence, which held six : it is like 
 a very clumsy, long- bodied coach, with a good 
 seat behind, and four little seats like arm-chairs 
 down on every side, and open to where the horses 
 are yoked, which makes it pleasant, as you see 
 before you, and everybody is drawn forward. We 
 were five, and we got in a grave-looking man in a 
 lay habit ; Mr. Calderwood took his nap, and the 
 man took out his book, and mumbled close at his 
 prayers. 
 
 'What can this man be?' thinks I; f it is so 
 common for the clergy to travell in their dress, 
 that it cannot be one of them, and yet he is so 
 handless-like, that he cannot be a body of any sort 
 of busness.' 
 
 But when Mr. Calderwood had taken his sleep, 
 and fallen to the man, he soon found he was a 
 channon of Tirlemont. These bodies look very 
 foolish-like in common clothes. 
 
 We dined at St. Tron, and the bairns and I 
 walked about a little, and went into a shop. 
 Whiles the woman was showing me something,
 
 JOURNEY 233 
 
 she started, and clapped her hands with joy, and 
 when I looked behind me, there stood a young-like 
 lad, who did not appear to be above eighteen, in a 
 monk's habit ; this was her son, who that day had 
 got on the habit of St. Benedict, for his clothes 
 were quite new, and [he] had just come in to let 
 his mother see him. The wife turned him round 
 and round, and severall lasses run out of other 
 rooms into the shop, and they all laughed and 
 fidged for gladness. I asked the woman if she 
 had any more children ; she said she had one other 
 son. 
 
 1 God help you,' thinks I, c what effect has 
 custom !' 
 
 But the woman, I suppose, thought her son's 
 bread was baked, for the Benedictines in that town 
 are very rich. 
 
 We slept that night at Tirlemont, and next day 
 dined at Louvaine. After we past Louvaine, 
 we turned off the road we came from Antwerp, 
 and left it upon the right, and came to a 
 height, from whence we had a prospect of this 
 country, which is vastly pretty, full of towns 
 and villages, and finely cultivated. The French 
 has not left a tree betwixt this and Louvaine, 
 on the road. It was a fine day, and there you
 
 234 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S JOURNEY 
 
 would have thought that all the Capucines had 
 broke loose, for they were marching in sixes 
 and sevens with their gowns tucked up, great fat 
 carles, with faces as red as scarlet. Peg Rainy, it 
 seems, at first called these vermine, so the bairns 
 cried out 
 
 c O ! see Mrs. Rainy, there is more vermine ; I 
 suppose Bruxells will be so troubled with vermine 
 that you will not can live in it.' There was every 
 little bit a chapell, set up like a sentry-box upon 
 the road. . . . c They 's chapells !' say they, c and a 
 fine dressed-up Virgin in every one of them, and 
 a tirless l door to let her be seen !' But every one 
 passed by, and we saw nobody praying at them. 
 When we came near Bruxells, the trees were left 
 standing, which made the road very pretty; the 
 town had ransomed them and their park from the 
 French, in which there is some very fine timber. 
 
 1 Tirless, a lattice or grating. JAMIESON.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Arrival at BRUSSELS: House-hunting: A friendly 
 Irishman : Mr. Davies : Educational : Veto of 
 the Priest's housekeeper : Soys sent to School : 
 Household matters : Prices of Labour : A Jewess 
 married for love: Difficulties with a Flemish 
 Contract : Currency : f A Ready-reckoner' 
 
 WE arrived here 1 the 24th of September, and were 
 recommended by Sir James to go to the oberge, called 
 Le Main D'or ; it is keept by two girls who speak 
 a little English. We were very well lodged, but 
 our dining room had no fire, and the house was 
 distant one part from another, and would be very 
 cold in winter. We had four rooms for three 
 guineas a month, and we made an agreement, that 
 whiles we staid, we were to pay twenty skillens a 
 day for breakfast, dinner, tea, and supper, including 
 lodging, and we were to provide fire and candle, 
 wine, etc. 
 
 1 At Brussels.
 
 236 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 Mr. Calderwood declared himself for a private 
 house, and everybody advised us to stay there, for 
 there were no furnished houses to let, and the ser- 
 vants were so bad that we would have great trouble 
 keeping house. My sentiments were, that if we 
 were to put up in a publick house, we could not 
 be better nor cheaper, and that, as we were well, 
 it was best not to be in a hurry, for then folks took 
 up with what they could get, and folks saw they 
 were in necessity, but that we should settle as if 
 we were to stay still, and look about us at leisure ; 
 so every time I went out to take a stroll through 
 the town, I looked for lodgings, but found none 
 tollerable. 
 
 I one day saw a ticket on a house, and went in ; 
 I was met at the door by a well-looked little 
 woman. She showed me one of the worst houses 
 ever I saw, and a dark, neck-break stair : at last 
 she carried me into a room, where was a young 
 man in his night-gown and cape ; he looked as if 
 he thought shame, and the lady always bid him 
 partly. At last he spoke English, and told me he 
 was an Irishman, and that he would be glad to 
 know in what he could serve me ? I told him I 
 was looking for a furnished house ; he said that 
 was what could not be got at Bruxells, he beleived,
 
 JOURNEY 237 
 
 but he would make it his busness to enquire. 
 Accordingly, he came next day to wait on me, in 
 very good dress. I told Mr. Calderwood my ad- 
 venture. 
 
 { I '11 lay my life,' says he, f he is little worth, 
 for I remember, when I was here long ago, I met 
 with a man, who, I think, was [of] the same name, 
 and who, I suppose, was his father, and was warned 
 to have nothing to do with him.' 
 
 ( Oh,' says I, f you 're ill-minded ; this is a silly, 
 flea-lugged-like l lad, and I 'm easy whether he is 
 good or ill, if he can find me what I want.' 
 
 When he came to see me, he told me he could 
 show me some houses, but not furnished. 
 
 c Would you,' says he, c take one a little bit from 
 the town ?' I told him I had boys to put to school. 
 
 * O ! then,' says he, c this will fit you exactly, for 
 it is in a vastly pretty village, about an hour from 
 the town, in which there is a gentleman keeps 
 a school, and takes in pensioners, and there is a 
 vastly pretty house just by it : it is on the side of a 
 canall, and the boat goes twice every day to town.' 
 
 I had no mind for a house in the country, but 
 
 1 Unsettled, hare-brained; Jamieson (see Dictionary] thinks 
 the allusion is to the start or uneasiness caused when the ear is 
 bitten by a flea.
 
 238 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 had a curiosity to see it, as I had often heard Lady 
 Fanny say she never found any place answer the 
 description given of it ; so I said I would take a 
 coach next day, and take the air that length, and 
 asked him to go with me and show it me : so, 
 accordingly, we went, and the road was one of the 
 prettiest ever I saw ; we had, the whole way, the 
 canall on the one hand, and trees on the other. 
 
 At last we came to two houses, prettily situated 
 on the canall, with fine gardens and water-works, 
 but these were taverns for the folks of the town to 
 go out and dine in, and there was a road turned 
 up, which led to the village. The coachman said 
 he could not go up there for dirtying his coach, 
 so we came out and walked. We first passed a 
 very good-like house, which he said was possessed 
 by an English family ; after that we went through 
 the church-yard, after that through severall little 
 kaill-yards, and over stiles, till we came to the 
 house, which was prettily situated on an eminence, 
 from whence you saw about you, but hardly, it 
 was so smothered with trees. It was a little thing 
 like a summer-house, two rooms below and two 
 above, but so thin and slight, that it could not be 
 inhabited in winter. The village was a few scat- 
 tered houses on the side of a height, and no street
 
 JOURNEY 239 
 
 but the road through it, some throwfare for car- 
 nages, very deep and dirty. 
 
 I went to see the school, and there were a 
 parcel! of boys that looked like the poorer sort ; 
 they had, up stairs, two unplaistered rooms for 
 them to sleep in, with ten beds in a room ; the 
 boys' beds were, some of them, all blooded with 
 their fighting. I told him that would not answer 
 my purpose : however, I did not grudge my 
 travell. 
 
 As we returned, the meadows all about were 
 smoaking at a great rate, which showed me I must 
 choise my habitation in the high part of the town, 
 as the low part near the canall must be very damp. 
 He then carried me to a house that was to let, in 
 a pretty good part of the town, but it stood in 
 great need of repair, and had a bad dark stair and 
 bad windows ; so I still delayed being in a hurry. 
 
 Next day, as I was going about, I asked for 
 something in a shop, and they said there was in 
 that house just by a woman who spoke English ; 
 I went into the house, and this was a tavern, 
 keeped by another Irishman, called Davies. The 
 woman asked me to come in, and we conversed a 
 little ; I told her I wanted a house furnished ; she 
 said such a thing was hard to be got, but that she
 
 240 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 would enquire : I asked her if she knew my Irish- 
 man, his name was O'lelly ? 
 
 ' Yes,' she said, c and his father before him, who 
 was a very little worth spark.' 
 
 She feared the son was not much better : so 
 I found Mr. Calderwood had been right as to 
 the man. He had married one of the principall 
 burgois of the town's daughter, and lived in good 
 enough credit, but I suppose was idle and ex- 
 travagant. This woman like ways offered me the 
 assistance of herself and her husband; and, 
 accordingly, the husband came next day, and told 
 me of a fine house, etc., for an absolute trifle, as a 
 man who had it was going to the country. I sent 
 Peg Rainy next day alongst with him to see it. 
 It was far down, in the low part of the town, near 
 the canall, which is not reckoned healthy ; and, as 
 Peggie was going up the stair, Mr. Davies took 
 her ... on which she flew in such a passion, that 
 she had almost thrown him over the stair, and 
 home she came in as great a feugh. 
 
 'I saw,' says I, 'he was a ree-brained 1 divell, 
 but thought nothing of it, as all the British are so 
 when they come abroad.' 
 
 1 Ree means exhilarated by drink ; not, as Jamieson has ir, 
 ' half-drunk, or tipsy.'
 
 JOURNEY 241 
 
 This house was well enough furnished, and the 
 meer trifle was ^36 sterling a-year. 
 
 By this time Mr. Nidham, who was not in town 
 when we came, arrived ; so the first thing was to 
 fix the boys. He went and asked the Jesuites if 
 they would take them into their colledge, which 
 they said they would do ; which we looked upon 
 as a favour, as they teach for nothing, and strangers 
 have no title to their labours, as they pay no part 
 of their establishment. By this time Mr. Calder- 
 wood had got the first of his cold, so could not go 
 out, and I went with Mr. Nidham to the colledge, 
 to see the prefect of the studies, who was extreamly 
 civill, and said he would order that particular care 
 should be taken of them, as they did not understand 
 the language, till which time they could not make 
 so great progress ; and, in order to obtain that the 
 sooner, advised me to board them out in a pension 
 which was hard by, and keeped by a preist, who 
 made it his whole busness to attend his boarders, 
 and assist them in their lessons : but, as it was 
 proper to have one who understood their own 
 language, a lad I had got to come in to them was 
 to go to them at that house. 
 
 He sent for the preist, who came and carried me 
 to his house, and, indeed, a neater tickled up little 
 
 Q
 
 242 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 thing I never saw; I beleive it was all in the 
 compass of a good room, in which he had kitchen, 
 parlour, two bed-chambers, one above another, and 
 two little ones for his boarders, which were other 
 three. The one was to be for us, with two tent- 
 beds, and all hung with pictures, as was all the 
 house, and carved, painted and gilded at a good 
 rate, and canary birds in fine cages hung all 
 through it. I thought they would be very well 
 with this orderly, nackety body ; I saw nobody in 
 the house, but a carefull-like body, like old Cristy, 
 who minded them : the board was but 1 6 per 
 annum. I told him they were not to go to masfe 
 when the school went at ten o'clock, but to go out 
 to his house, and, as the eldest was of a delicate 
 stomach, he was not to eat meagre ; if he did not 
 incline to give him meat, he should dine with us 
 on meagre days : to all which the man consented. 
 
 Next day I went again to see what beding they 
 were to have, and found the preist abroad, and 
 another woman than the one I had seen the day 
 before (who was the housekeeper) at home. I told 
 her the same thing, and she asked if they were not 
 catholick? I told her, no; at which she cast up 
 her eyes and crossed herself. 
 
 ' Ho, ho/ thinks I, < this will not do.'
 
 JOURNEY 243 
 
 I bid my interpreter, who was the lad that was 
 to come in to them, to tell her they were not 
 catholicks yet, but they were young, and she would 
 make [them] good catholicks ; as, by the time that 
 would be in her power, by their understanding her 
 instructions, my intentions would be fulfilled in 
 putting them there. 
 
 But, in short, as I guessed, the next day the 
 preist came, and told me he could not take them. 
 
 I found we had lost no time, for the colledge 
 was just to meet next day, so we made all haste 
 to get them the badge of students, like Gil Bias, 
 only, instead of a long black cloak, they got red 
 ones down to their heels, with gold embroidered 
 button-holes, which is the badge of gentlemen. 
 So to school they went, and were put into the 
 first class, as the want of the French keeped 
 them from going higher. As the fathers had not 
 examined them, but probably beleived they were 
 to begin the Latin, I desired the prefect and the 
 rudement father to come and see us, that they might 
 know the exact length they were come in the Latin. 
 
 That day Jamie had thought fit to make a 
 quarrell with Peggie Rainy, and in the scuffle had 
 broke his forehead. Willie came in, and answered 
 what questions were asked at him, but for James,
 
 244 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 he was not quite composed ; I told him, if he did 
 not appear, as he was little, they would certainly 
 begin him at the ABC. This had some weight, 
 and after getting his face washed, and a bit of 
 paper battered on his forehead, he appeared, and 
 read and answered with as much assurance as if 
 nothing had happened. 
 
 The fathers made great lament for his fall, which 
 he let pass. I called for a glass of wine, but when 
 it was brought in, the carles started as if they had 
 seen the divell, and told they could not taste it, 
 as it was against their rules to eat or drink in a 
 publick house. 
 
 After this point was fixed, and the pension 
 misgiven, we knew whereabouts we must have a 
 house, viz., as near the colledge as possible. I 
 had such a sufficient insight as to my country folks, 
 that I intended to give them no more trouble ; 
 and, impossible as it seemed to take a house and 
 furnish it, without the assistance of any one who 
 knew the town, or understood me, yet I resolved 
 to attempt it : for I found a furnished house in 
 Bruxells was exactly like the commission old Lady 
 Minto got from old Jerviswood, 1 viz., to get him 
 
 1 Baillie of Jerviswood, the early patron of the poet Thomson. 
 See The Bee, (1791,) vol. v. p. 201.
 
 JOURNEY 245 
 
 a fine house at the Cross of Edinburgh, with a 
 large garden behind it, that he might both have 
 the pleasure of seeing the street and walking in 
 his own garden ; and a house we must have, as 
 the coldness of the inn had given Mr. Calderwood a 
 severe cold, and twenty coaches past under our bed 
 every night, besides, as many more as were in the 
 town past by our windows. 
 
 The lad who attends the bairns is called Staple- 
 ton ; him I took with me, and first came to the 
 colledge, and from that struck up to the airth * I 
 would choise to live in, which was high, upon 
 what is called a mountain here, and the mountain 
 de quater vents, equall to what we call with us 
 ' where wind and weather shears : ' this great 
 mountain is, I think, as high above the low part 
 of the town as the Cross is above the Canongate ; 
 a good part of the town [is] still beyond it, and 
 from the colledge it enters up a very good street, 
 the steepest part of which is like the steep at the 
 Nether-Bow. 2 
 
 1 Direction. 
 
 2 At the head of the Canongate of Edinburgh stood the 
 Nether-Bow Port, where St. Mary's Wynd (now St. Mary's 
 Street) enters from the south. It was a handsome gateway, 
 surmounted by a lofty tower terminating in a graceful spire. 
 It was removed in 1764.
 
 246 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 Up that street I went, (for the Scots folks as 
 naturally climb up as the goats do,) and looked 
 on every hand for a house to let. When I was 
 just dispairing, near the head of the street I saw a 
 billet, and rung the bell. Nobody answered ; at 
 last a well-dressed officer looked out of a window, 
 and told us to call at the house over against, who 
 had the key : which we got, and I found a house 
 I had no notion was to be had in Bruxells. For 
 the large houses are all inns with open courts and 
 galleries, and every room a stair; and the small 
 houses are like those in the Cowgate, where you 
 see the hair-pickers sitting, with leaded windows ; 
 and neither great nor small will vent, which obliges 
 them to use stoves : nay, these stoves will not vent 
 at the chimney, but are often let out in a hole in 
 the outer wall, at the cheek of the window. This 
 is such a calamity in this town, that even the 
 Prince in his house is smoaked to death, and he 
 got a doctor over from London, who declared 
 the disease incureable, from the situation of the 
 town, which I think is as good an one as can 
 possibly be. 
 
 To my great joy I found that every room in this 
 house would vent, as they were concaved like ours, 
 and would burn with coall grates. I have drawn
 
 JOURNEY 247 
 
 a plan of the house, which is much better than 
 description, and you will see that, whereas we show 
 our knowledge of mathematicks, by casting all our 
 buildings into exact squares, they choise to show 
 theirs by variety of angles ; not one corner is of 
 the same angle with another. Whenever a street 
 makes a turn, sweep go about the houses built 
 upon it, as if it had been turned after they were all 
 set ; but, however foolish-like it looks on paper, 
 it does not appear so ill to the eye. 
 
 The rent of this house, I was informed, was one 
 hundred and ninety-one gilders, which, in our 
 money, is little more than ^15 sterling, and that 
 the house belonged to two girls, one of which was 
 in a convent. What started me most was the bare 
 plaister wall, which, by the bye, are not plenty 
 here, neither are plaistered roofs, which it by good 
 luck had. 
 
 Before I could determine about taking it, I 
 must enquire the price of furniture, and, first, if I 
 could get anything reasonable to cover the walls. 
 All the folks here use either arras, gilt leather, or 
 flowered waxcloth, all which are both dear, and not 
 worth carrying to any other place. However, I 
 soon found I could get English paper, though the 
 lowest price was a crown the peice, but by great
 
 248 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 mercy the rooms were neither large nor high in 
 the roof, and I found I could get a rush matt, five 
 English quarters broad, for about fourpence the 
 yard, which would be chair-back hight, and would 
 both save paper, and save it from being rubbed 
 and dirtied. As for timber things and kitchen 
 things in sort, smith and wright work were all to 
 sell ready made, of the simplest nature, and cheap, 
 and everything of furniture kind very reasonable, 
 as these trades who make furniture are in their 
 greatest infancy you can imagine ; but, as nobody 
 has better, it has no mean look, and is neat and 
 simple. 
 
 There is a mystery to me yet in this : in no 
 place labour (if you hire it by the day) is dearer 
 than here ; a gilder, which is their 2od. and about 
 our i yd., is the least any tradesman takes to do 
 anything by the day, and this is a stated rule here. 
 And yet every peice of work that man makes is 
 cheap ; for instance, a chair, with one carved bar 
 close to the bottom behind, eight other turned 
 bars, the stoops and four cross bars in the back, a 
 rush bottom, and stained red or yellow as you 
 please ; these you buy for nineteenpence [of] their 
 money. 
 
 As I found things in generall cheap, especially
 
 JOURNEY 249 
 
 these I could not carry when I left the place, (I 
 was indifferent what portable goods cost, as I could 
 send them home by sea,) I resolved to take the 
 house, so must find out where the landlady was ; 
 so got [to] the convent, and went to her. She 
 was a girl about fifteen, a pensioner ; however, she 
 must come to the grate; she was a snack 1 little 
 lassie, and told us her sister was come to town, and 
 I must speak to her. 
 
 No sooner was it reported that we were to take 
 a house, than I had offers of assistance from 
 severall British, who told me I would be ruined to 
 buy furniture ; I must hire, and they knew honest 
 people who would hire the furniture of a house by 
 the day, week, month, or year. To them I went, 
 and found what they had was old, and that they 
 hired by the peice, that bed and that, such and 
 such a thing, for so much the month. 
 
 ' Will you sell me these things ?' says I. 
 
 c O yes.' Well I will buy this and that ; what 
 is the price ?' 
 
 ' It is so much.' So after priging it down to 
 the lowest 
 
 'Now, what will you hire me this for?' 
 
 I found that these honest people demanded only 
 
 1 Snack, quick of apprehension. JAMIESON'S Dictionary.
 
 2 5 o MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 eighty per cent. ; so I thanked my advisers, and 
 told them I would buy, and, if I gave it in a 
 present at my departure, I would be a gainer. 
 
 The only thing I wanted was a woman 
 interpreter, who had no interest in what I did ; 
 though the girls in the house where I lodged 
 could speak a little English, yet they were in- 
 terested in my staying with them, so I would 
 not trust them. 
 
 As I was going alongst the great market-place, 
 where there are severall shops, out comes a little 
 odd-like woman, and runs to me. 
 
 c God bless your soul,' says she, c my dear lady, 
 I see you are English, and so am I ; for as poor- 
 like as I look, my father is very rich, but he has 
 turned me out of doors for marrying a second 
 husband ; indeed, / have pleased my eye and vexed 
 my heart ! I was a Jew, and (I beg pardon, my 
 dear lady) I am turned Christian, and for that 
 my dady will not see me.' 
 
 c Madam,' says I, c as you took me for English, 
 you might beg my pardon for being Christian ; 
 but, as I am a Scotswoman, and a Christian too, 
 there is no occasion.' 
 
 'I see,' says she, 'you are a stranger, and are 
 looking for something ; I have been but six weeks
 
 JOURNEY 251 
 
 in this place, and know but few : but whatever you 
 want, I am ready to serve you.' 
 
 f Madam,' says I, f can you speak French or 
 Flemish ?' 
 
 * God bless me,' says she, ' was not I bred in 
 Holland, and have resided long in these countries, 
 and can speak it as well as English, as does my 
 husband there. Poor little fellow ! I wish to God 
 anybody would take him for a vallet; nobody 
 need be ashamed to work, but he looks so simple 
 and foolish, that, when I reprove him for anything, 
 he looks like a fooll. He overturned, the other 
 day, a panfujl of grease in the fire, and had almost 
 brunt the house. " You brute," says I, " get you 
 out of my sight, or I will throw you in the midst 
 of it ! " But I vow to God, madam, I was never 
 so much ashamed in my life, for the landlady 
 where I stay was sick, and her doctor was by, who 
 I did not think understood English. Cf Fye," says 
 he, " madam ! is that a stile to talk to your hus- 
 band?" " Come here, my honey !'" says she. 
 
 I looked about to see this man that had pleased 
 the eye so much, and, behold ! a little, silly, dad- 
 ling, naisty body, with a coat which had belonged 
 to a man of six foot high upon him, by all the world 
 in person and dress just Loan Stain, that drove an ass
 
 252 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 with heather brushes. All this passed in a breath 
 in the market-place. I told my Christian what I 
 wanted, and that I would be glad of her assistance ; 
 she showed me a shop who sold beds, matresses, 
 and blankets, and told me, on the road to it, that 
 her father was banquier to the King of Prussia, and 
 worth a mint of money. 
 
 f He says I robbed him, but I took nothing but 
 my own ; what ! was he to keep my money ? I 
 broke up his closet, and took out the rights of 
 lands in this country, to the value of twenty thou- 
 sand gilders, and now he is at law with me for my 
 own. I made my complaints to the Elector of 
 Cologne, and now I have made it to Prince 
 Charles, who has promised me justice, and gave 
 me six ducats. I cannot work, and my affair will 
 be long in dependance, and my husband can do 
 nothing to assist me : I wish to God anybody 
 would take him for a vallet.' 
 
 I went to the shop she showed me, where I made 
 agreement for beds, or rather matresses, blankets, 
 etc., and, finding I could furnish at a reasonable 
 rate, I resolved to take the house, and to buy 
 everything new, with no other assistance than my 
 Christian interpreter, who, though she was not 
 legally sworn, took care to confirm everything with
 
 JOURNEY 253 
 
 f as I hope to be saved.' She espoused my 
 interest with so much violence, that, if I had any 
 dispute, she was ready to pluck out the eyes of 
 my antagonist. 
 
 We must now seek out the sister who let the 
 house, and ordered, according to custom, a con- 
 tract to be drawn, which both parties was to sign, 
 and next day was appointed for its being finished. 
 We went back and there was a lawyer with a con- 
 tract in Flemish ; the lawyer said the lady must 
 hear the contract read, and make any objections to 
 it she had. He was told the lady did not under- 
 stand one word of it. He was a scatter-brained- 
 like fellow, and when he heard I did not under- 
 stand it, he gaped and stared like a mad body, 
 and said he could not let the house to one who 
 did not understand the bargain they were mak- 
 ing ; he was acting for the orphans, and we were 
 strangers whom he did not know. 
 
 The Jew understood him that my want of 
 Flemish was his objection, and that he doubted 
 his payment, at which she flew into such a passion, 
 cursed and railled at the lawyer, and there insued 
 such a dispute, that I hoped it would come to 
 blows. I beleive the lawyer and she both thought 
 I was mad, for, instead of being concerned for my
 
 254 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 honour, I laught till I thought I should have died. 
 After she had abused the lawyer, she turned to me: 
 
 * He is a damned impertinat rascall,' says she ; 
 { I am ashamed to repeat what he says ; he says 
 you are a stranger, madam, and severall people in 
 this place are not what they appear to be ; and, if 
 there be a house to be had, madam, I would not 
 have you to take it.* 
 
 ' Madam,' says I, f tell the gentleman he says 
 nothing but [what] is just and reasonable, and that 
 I have a good opinion of his honesty from his not 
 trusting me ; I desire no security but my money, 
 and I will pay him just now the whole or any part 
 of the rent he pleases ; but, as there are some things 
 to be performed on his side, I desire, for both our 
 security, that the upholstrer sign the contract in 
 my stead, and I [will] take the house from him.' 
 
 For you must know at this time Mr. Calder- 
 wood was laid up with his swelled face and blister, 
 but it would have been the same, for I found that 
 neither my upholstrer nor lawyer understood 
 French. This overture composed all differences, 
 and we paid a half-year's rent in to the upholstrer. 
 
 This was the 4th of October, and I went about, 
 or Peggie, and attended Mr. Calderwood by turns, 
 and, against the I4th, we were settled in it, and
 
 JOURNEY 255 
 
 everything ready for us. The folks I found were 
 honest in some things, and not in others, but that 
 this was not cheatry, but allowed advantages, such 
 as taking as much as they could in bargain, and 
 where a conditionall bargain was made, to take any 
 advantage they could get ; for instance, whatever 
 I saw and bargained for I had at a just price, and 
 whatever was bespoke I was imposed on, but this 
 was only in the bedsteads and chimney-grates. 
 The first were ordered otherways than the fashion 
 here, and the grates were a thing they had never 
 made before ; but I found where they could best 
 impose on me, they were very honest. 
 
 Till then I had never dispursed any money, but 
 left it all to John ; here the money altered, and 
 such a power of variety of coins, that nothing but 
 custom can make one know it. They count all 
 by gilders or florins, yet have no such peice of 
 money ; it must be made out of farthings, called 
 Hares, or orchies ; peices of twopence-halfpenny ; 
 of threepence-halfpenny ; of fivepence ; of seven- 
 pence (called a skillen) ; of tenpence-halfpenny ; of 
 fourteenpence (called two skillens); of two and a 
 half; of five and a half; of ten skillen and one 
 penny, three of which, when put together, makes 
 thirty skillens, which is a pistoll ; and a placket,
 
 256 MRS. CALDER WOOD'S JOURNEY 
 
 which is threepence-halfpenny. Then for gold 
 they have ducats, which are five florins, eighteen- 
 pence ; soverings of eight florins, sixteenpence- 
 halfpenny ; and double soverings of seventeen 
 florins and seventeenpence. 
 
 In all this variety of money I found I could 
 trust them intirely, and severall times I paid more 
 than I should, and they came back and told me 
 they had got too much ; this I thought was honest, 
 from folks who had me to hunt out to pay me 
 back. The people here cannot count by pen and 
 ink, it is all in their head, or by a book which is 
 very usefull ; it tells you how much one peice of 
 anything is from one yard to a thousand, at any 
 price from the lowest, which you know by turning 
 up the price it is. I shall send you the inventory 
 of the furniture, I cannot specify now the price of 
 everything, but such things as I remember.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 BRUSSELS' Streets and Fair : The Manneken Foun- 
 tain : Water Supply : Church of St. Gudule : 
 The Beguinage : Flemish Charity: Work of 
 the Sisters : Festival of St. Michael: Proces- 
 sions : Taxes and Provisions : Fuel and Stoves : 
 Beauties of Charcoal: MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 Secret of the Pen : Fruits of Travel : Contin- 
 ental breadth of vision and politeness. 
 
 Now, as for this town, it is not what you would 
 call pretty when compared to the Dutch towns, 
 but, compared with some others in this country, it 
 is. The streets are all good, well paved and open, 
 and severall very airy squares in it. The great 
 market is like four times the bigness of the Parlia- 
 ment close, including the ground which the new 
 kirk 1 takes up ; the one side of it is almost taken 
 
 1 In Edgar's map of Edinburgh, 1765, St. Giles', or the High 
 Church, is shown divided into three sections ; the Choir being 
 called the ' New Church Isle.' To the east a narrow passage 
 connected the High Street with the Parliament Close, or Square. 
 
 R
 
 258 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 up by the town-house, which is a large square build- 
 ing, and an open court within it. This is a very 
 fine ornamented building, and either has been, or 
 has been intended to be more so, as there are places 
 for statues which are not occupied. St. Michael, the 
 patron of the town, is above the door, gilded, over- 
 coming the great dragon ; the roof is very steep, 
 and three rows of garet windows within the roof. 
 
 The great fair, which was since I came here, 
 holds in it, and in the market-place ; there was a 
 terrible crowd, and all this building was employed 
 by the shops, but I saw nothing very curious, nor 
 very cheap, except carved work, looking-glass 
 frames, and small picture frames, crucifixes, etc. : 
 but what I would fain have bought (could I have 
 got them easily sent you) were breckets for candles 
 or flower-pots, very well carved, unpainted, for 
 tenpence-halfpenny the pair. From this great 
 square a street goes off at every corner, and all 
 round it are shops ; and, indeed, for shops, this 
 town surpasses any one I have seen : it is a mart 
 for Dutch and English goods, for Germany and 
 the country round about, as it is impossible that 
 the town can find them busness. 
 
 All the streets everywhere are lined with shops, 
 except the doors which enter to private houses ;
 
 JOURNEY 259 
 
 smiths, wrights, shoemakers, and every trade have 
 their shops and work-houses to the street, and 
 there are very few little lanes which lead from one 
 street to another. It covers a great deall of 
 ground for its inhabitants ; there are not above 
 57,000 people in it; but it is uncompactly built, 
 and the houses have a good deall of waste ground 
 within their entries, like courts, and passages 
 besides : the churches and convents take up a 
 great deall of ground for few inhabitants. 
 
 It is vastly well supplied with water, and the 
 fountains are, some of them, very pretty : the 
 oldest, and what is greatly valued by the town, is 
 one called Manicky. This is a little gilded statue, 
 about the size of your Jamie ; round this is a rail 
 of iron, and a place for one to put in a thing to 
 take the water. When the French took the town, 
 they imagined that Manicky was certainly made of 
 gold, and they stoll him ; upon which the town was 
 in an uproar, and complained to Marishall Saxe, who 
 ordered him to be replaced ; and, to make up for 
 this outrage, gave him a compleat suit of clothes, 
 with a hat and feather, in which he is drest on St. 
 Michael's day, and the day of the Holy Trinity. 1 
 
 1 ' The oldest inhabitant of Brussels ' has still a wardrobe of his 
 own, and a valet to dress him of special occasions. BAEDEKER.
 
 260 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 In a square called the Sablong, where the soldiers 
 are reveiwed, and where a guard is kept, there is a 
 very fine fountain, built by the town very lately, 
 from a thousand pounds the old Earl of Elsburgy 
 (who resided many years, and died here) left for 
 that purpose. 
 
 It is still a sort of mistry to me from whence 
 the water in the high part of the town comes, as 
 it seems to be much higher than any ground about 
 it ; and besides, the outsides of the rampards, and 
 the fortifications and fossies are cut so deep, that 
 I should think they would cut off any springs. I 
 do not see any reservoirs of water, which a town 
 that is fortified should not be without, if their 
 fountain heads be not guarded from the enemy ; 
 but this, and many things else, I may come to the 
 knowledge of, if my own countryfolks, of whom 
 there are a good number here, employ their time 
 in making any observations. 
 
 The grand church is a very large building, 
 dedicated to Saint Gudel ; I cannot say I ever 
 heard of him before, unless it is an old beddel at 
 Liberton kirk, who has been canonized. 1 I do not 
 
 1 The house of Goodtrees, or Moredun, then the property 
 of Sir James Steuart, Mrs. Calderwood's brother, is close to 
 Liberton. We may perhaps infer that the name of the Beadle 
 of Liberton Church in the year 1756 was Goodall.
 
 JOURNEY 261 
 
 know exactly how many convents are in the town, 
 but I imagine not so many in proportion as in 
 some other towns of less note. 
 
 I went one Sunday evening to the Begines 1 
 church, and through the Beginage ; this foundation, 
 if it be right imployed, is the only one I would 
 adopt of all the church catholick. In this a 
 woman may go and live, if she can maritain her- 
 self either from her funds or work ; every one of 
 them has a house and a small garden, and it is a 
 little town within itself, narrow little streets, and 
 cross lanes, and vastly clean. They have liberty 
 to go about, are under no vows, and they may 
 marry ; only are to keep regular hours, as a gate 
 shuts at a certain hour, which keeps them all in. 
 I went to see them in church, where every one 
 had a white vaill, which is just a peice of holland, 
 about the size of a small table-cloth. I beleive 
 there might be about three hundred of them ; a 
 
 1 Beguines, an ancient foundation in Flanders dating from 
 1 1 84, named after the founder, Lambert le Beghe, a priest of the 
 diocese of Liege ; for widows and single women who desired to 
 consecrate their lives to God's service. The name Beguinage 
 was given to the abode, or group of houses, in which the com- 
 munity lived. They do not take perpetual vows nor renounce 
 private property. At the present day the institution is still in a 
 flourishing state in Belgium.
 
 262 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 preist was giving the benediction, and there was no 
 other man in the whole church. There was one 
 came about gathering charity in the midst of the 
 service, but she came very ill speed, for severalls 
 gave her a nod to go on. 
 
 I have observed before the cheapness of charity 
 in all these countries, but I did not reflect upon it. 
 I thought an English shilling would be the least I 
 would have given in a stranger church at home, 
 and regrated I had not a two skillen peice to give, 
 so gave one skillen : after I had given it, she came 
 to the girl in the house I then lodged in, and 
 whispered something. 
 
 c What does she want ? ' says I ; c would she 
 have more ? ' 
 
 c No,' says she ; * she wants to know if you will 
 have your change.' 
 
 ' No,' says I, c she may keep it all.' 
 
 But she could not beleive but it was a mistake 
 in language, and came back again : in short, she, I 
 suppose, had never seen silver in her ladle before. 
 I walked through the Bigenage after the musick was 
 over, and waited till they came out, that I might see 
 their faces ; and such a parcell of old, ugly, squint- 
 ing, crooked, limping creatures I think I never saw. 
 
 'God be thanked,' thinks I, 'that here is a
 
 JOURNEY 263 
 
 cavy 1 for you, for I'm sure no other country 
 could affoard such a collection. Marry ! indeed 
 you may marry, if anybody has a mind for you ! 
 there is no need of locking you up.' 
 
 And they make good use of their liberty, for, 
 wherever you go, they are there. ... I went into 
 one of their houses, where two sisters and a neice 
 lived together. Their house was just like a ship- 
 cabbin ; three little rooms below, one of which 
 served for a kitchin, and they had rooms to sleep 
 [in] above ; it was very neat, and they showed me 
 severall sorts of works they imployed themselves 
 in, such as gum-flowers, purses, and such things, 
 but none very elegant. I asked them if they 
 made the religious orders : 2 they showed me only a 
 Capucine, which was very well execute as to the 
 figure, but I did not think the dress exact, (for you 
 must know that severall orders differ widely from 
 others by perhaps the cut of the cowll, whether it 
 has a narrow point or a round;) besides his clothes 
 were made of silk, which would never do. She 
 said she could make them all for me, but I had 
 found I must not bespeak anything in this place, 
 for, had they been never so ill, she would have 
 made a sad complaint, if I had not taken them. 
 
 1 A hen-house. 2 Models of costume.
 
 264 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 A great part of their work is grounding lace. 
 The manufactory of the lace is very curious ; one 
 person works the flowers, and they are all sold 
 separate, and you will see a very pretty sprig, 
 which the worker gets but twelvepence for working. 
 The merchants have all these people imployed, 
 gives them the thread to make them, then they 
 lay them according to a pattern, and give them out 
 to be grounded; after this they give them to a 
 third hand, who hearts all the flowers with the 
 open work : this is what makes that lace so much 
 dearer than the Mechline, which is wrought all at 
 once. 
 
 On Michaelmass day there was a grand proces- 
 sion through every street of this town, and all the 
 windows were covered with green boughs. The 
 town obliges all the begging orders to march at 
 the procession. First came the officers of the 
 town, drest in old crimson velvet robes, trimmed 
 with silver, down to their heels, and at the bottom 
 a girth, which held them out like a hoop. They 
 carried St. Michael their patron, and the arms and 
 ensigns of the town. Then came the trades, and 
 each trade had its ensign carried before it. Then 
 came the friers ; and first the Capucines ; secondly, 
 the Minums, who are in black like Capucines, but
 
 JOURNEY 265 
 
 a different cut of clothes ; thirdly the Dominicans ; 
 then the Carmelites, who have Besse's white capu- 
 cine over their black gowns, and amongst them 
 there was the fattest swelled carles ever I saw ; 
 fifthly, the Franciscans, who are drest like the 
 Capucines, but have no bairds, and they were a 
 set of poor whinsing-like 1 bodies ; they were not so 
 numerous as I imagined, for, in every order, one 
 with another, there are forty a-peice, lay brothers 
 included, which made two hundred : next came 
 the clergy, that is, the seculars, who were not so 
 numerous neither, if they were all there ; they had 
 on their robes in which they officiate, excepting a 
 particular robe which is put on when they are to 
 touch the host; these robes were surpluses of 
 stripped musline : then came the magistrates of the 
 town ; and, last of all, came the high preist, carry- 
 ing the host under a canopy ; every now and then 
 once in every street, he came from under the 
 canopy, and held up the host, at which everybody 
 kneeled. 
 
 This procession, on every side of the street, was 
 lined with the principal burghers of the town, who 
 carried wax candles : but I was told that this show 
 was not so fine as St. Christopher, who is the 
 
 1 Whinge, to complain. JAMIESON.
 
 266 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 tallest man they can get, and he walks upon stilts, 
 such as the country folks wade the water with, and 
 carries a boy on his back ; and the prince makes 
 St. Christopher a present of about ^10 for his 
 trouble. 
 
 Mr. Nidham carried me with the boys up to a 
 window to see the procession. He laughed at it 
 very easily : 
 
 f Well/ says he to the boys, f what do you 
 think of this?' 
 
 They thought shame to answer, as they durst 
 not laugh at it. 
 
 ' You won't see the like of that in Edinburgh.' 
 
 c No, truely,' says I, * they would expect the 
 devil was to drive up the rear there.' 
 
 We pay a great many taxes to the church in 
 this house, but they are all very small, and they 
 tell what they must have. They will come, c One 
 Hard for a man who is to be hanged to-morrow ; ' 
 this is to pay for his getting out of purgatory. 
 Every Sunday, f Deux Hards for the passion of the 
 Eon Dieu,' c Un sous for the Capucines,' etc. All 
 the tax common inhabitants pay to the government 
 or town is one pistole from the landlord, and 
 another from the tennant in the year to the queen. 
 
 As for living here, it is very reasonable : all
 
 JOURNEY 267 
 
 sorts of meat is very good, and is threepence-half- 
 penny the pound ; the fowls sixpence and eight- 
 pence, according to the goodness ; partridges are 
 fivepence or sixpence the peice; the pidgeons 
 fourpence, sometimes less, but they are the largest 
 I ever saw, and as much meat upon them as on an 
 ordinary chicken ; the fish just as they are plenty 
 or scarce ; oysters twentypence the hundred, and 
 mussles very cheap ; and the red herrings are very 
 good and fat, not so dry as with us, nor so salt ; 
 all sorts of garden things very good and cheap; 
 butter the finest can be eat. There is a kind 
 called prince's butter, which sells at fivepence 
 the pound ; this butter was famous when King 
 Charles was in exile, and, as he was fond of 
 it, it got the priviledge of a particular stamp, 
 with an imperiall crown upon it, which it still 
 keeps. The other butter, some of which is as 
 good, sells for fourpence and fourpence-halfpenny 
 the pound. 
 
 The candle is but our four shilling the stone ; 
 great and small have cotton wicks, they are all 
 dipped, none moulded ; but, as people are always 
 so contentious, that they cannot enjoy anything 
 that is cheap, to prevent themselves from the 
 benefit of it, nobody burns anything but wax when
 
 268 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 they have company. The wax-candles, the best is 
 twenty-eight pence the pound, others twenty-five, 
 but not good. 
 
 Fireing of all kinds is the dearest thing here ; 
 coals are six florins the thousand, they come from 
 Namur : there are two kinds, called fat and lean 
 coalls ; they burn best together, for the fat burns 
 so slow, that, if you do not take care, it will die 
 out, and the lean burns like a tar barrell. The 
 wood is likeways dearer, at least it would be to us, 
 who must have at least four constant fires, but we 
 burn wood in the kitchin : the use of it, and [what] 
 makes the folks here use it is, that when they want 
 a fire, they have it imediatly, and it goes out when 
 they are done with it ; whereas when you once lay 
 on a coal fire, you must burn it out. Everybody 
 comes in to us is like to be brunt to death, but I 
 find they like it very well. In all the shops and 
 in most of the houses, they use stoves, which, as 
 we are coal-masters, 1 I will say nothing of; and, 
 least anybody grudge not being let into this secret 
 for their comfort, they do best with wood, but our 
 
 1 The allusion is no doubt to the fact of the chief wealth of 
 Coltness lying in its coal mines. Indeed the name of the place 
 is said to be derived from the circumstance of the coal in that 
 locality 'jutting out in points' Coltness Collections, p. 57.
 
 JOURNEY 269 
 
 stoves in Edinburgh, last winter, were all out in 
 their contrivance, which may be set down to the 
 account of want of observation ; so, since they 
 have not profited by their own travells, they shall 
 no profit by mine. 
 
 I have often heard it said, that, when one saw 
 an usefull contrivance, they are apt to think, f I 
 wonder how I have done all this time without 
 that;' but the only thing has struck me in that 
 way has been the charcoall, and I do wonder it 
 has never made its way to Scotland, where we 
 have so much wood that no use can be made of. 
 I sent John and the bairns to see a charcoall kiln 
 when at Spaw ; it is a very simple operation ; it 
 was such a road I could not go in a machine, which 
 I regrated. I do think it is the most usefull thing 
 I have met with, and it is certainly with great 
 labour that our cooks can dress so many dishes 
 without it, as you know we cannot have in any 
 kitchin above two stoves, because they must vent 
 up the chimney ; but with it you may have twenty 
 in the midst of the floor, and unless it is to boill a 
 large pot or roast meat, there is no use for a fire 
 in the kitchin grate. They have not the least 
 smoak, and in your new house, any place you 
 would have keept warm in winter, and wanted to
 
 270 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 dry, without bestowing a great deall of fire upon, 
 only set a choffer with it into the room, and it will 
 keep it in a constant gentle heat. I do not know 
 how far the Newcastle cinders may answer in place 
 of it, but it is worth the while to try. All the 
 women here use stoves for their feet, and it is only 
 for want of charcoall that the kaill wives in Edin- 
 burgh have suffered so much cold. 
 
 All my volumes end abruptly, and so must this, 
 as Lady Nelly goes to-morrow, and is to carry 
 it, so [I] must haste to my inventor 1 and plan I 
 promised you. I have not time to look over nor 
 correct the last pages, which you will do before 
 anybody else see [them]. I have only one thing 
 in my works which any great author has had before 
 me, that, like Shakspear, I write without a blot, 
 that is, without correction or second thought ; for, 
 as an author I have heard quoted by Mrs. Murray 
 says, 
 
 First in my head, then to my hand, 
 
 Then to my pen, when I 
 Am upon paper dribled out 
 
 Most dentely. 
 
 Now, my dear, I must finish my journall for 
 this period, as Lady Nelly goes to-morrow morn- 
 
 1 Inventory of furniture.
 
 JOURNEY 271 
 
 ing, and this with her. All I shall say by way of 
 conclusion is, that travelling may be an advantage 
 to wise men, and a loss to fools, and the weight of 
 anybody's brain is well known, when they are seen 
 out of their own country. The proper use of it is 
 to learn to set a just value upon every country, 
 or the things they possess; and I beleive, when 
 accompts are ballanced, the favours of Providence 
 are more equally distributed than we rashly imagine 
 what one country wants another can supply, which 
 links men into one common society ; and it is 
 curious to observe the contrivances they fall on to 
 supply those wants either cannot be purchased, or 
 are too expensive for the generality. 
 
 The people on the continent have their minds 
 more at large with regard to the rest of the world 
 than those in an island ; they have opportunity of 
 converse with all nations, which takes off prejudice, 
 except when it is politicall, and even then it does 
 not extend to individuals. Their behaviour is 
 politer, because they are often amongst strangers, 
 and it makes just the same difference betwixt them 
 and us, as it does on the same man when he is in 
 company and at home ; he is the same man in head 
 and heart, when he is intertaining a great visitor, 
 as he is when lolling at his own fireside.
 
 272 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S JOURNEY 
 
 After setting a just value upon others, I must 
 next set it on myself. I think I have done 
 wonders, that, in the midst of all my hurry, I 
 have found time to write so many pages, as all 
 this is wrote since I came to Bruxells ; and I have 
 gone so much through this town that I know it as 
 well as Edinburgh.
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 Preface to the ' FOURTH VOLUME ' : Brussels, its in- 
 habitants' characteristics : Spanish pride of the 
 Nobility : An Irish Lady and her daughter : 
 Madame Beaton : Major Ducary of Lord Stair's 
 Regiment : Wanderings of Madame Beaton : 
 Her French : Her card-playing : Madame Jolly: 
 Her provisional Baptism: Controversial talk: 
 GOSSIP : An unfortunate Prince : Dutch Rapa- 
 city : Frost and the c English Key.' 
 
 FINDING in myself neither genius, nor capacity, 
 nor application to acquire the French by book, 
 and, like other authors, having got the scribling 
 itch, I suppose ; or perhaps seldom geting out my 
 breath in good Scots ; or from what other reason 
 I know not, but I find an impulse to return to my 
 journall. Had I acquired the French, I might 
 likeways have acquired the art of making com- 
 pliments, and, instead of saying I wrote for my 
 own pleasure, I would have said I wrote for yours ;
 
 274 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 so I would, if a compliment of that kind could be 
 genteely turned in so barbarous a language as the 
 English. This I think preface enough to my 
 fourth volume. 
 
 This city of Bruxells, then, makes a great figure 
 upon ground, but, by the number of the inhabi- 
 tants, it is not much more populous than Edin- 
 burgh, 53,000 being the common computation. 
 It has a great many streets, but, betwixt them, 
 there must be waste ground of some kind, for you 
 see no small lanes which carry you from one to 
 another, and everybody lives to the street, so that 
 it is like Glasgow in this respect : the churches, 
 monastries, and such places, take up a great deall 
 of room for few inhabitants. The people are in 
 generall but poor, though they cannot be said to 
 be oppressed with poverty, but, compared with 
 other places, (at least in Britain,) they are, so far 
 as they live very poorly, and do not, by so doing, 
 acquire much money. They are a mixture of the 
 Spanish and Dutch, but the worst of both charac- 
 ters, for they have the Spanish pride and the Dutch 
 phlem, and have neither the honesty of the first 
 nor the industry of the last. 
 
 The people of fashion are the most remarkable
 
 JOURNEY 275 
 
 in this respect, for the burghers are a grave dull 
 set, and some of them rich, and the commons 
 much like as in other countries ; but the nobility 
 are all broken, their estates drowned in debt : the 
 younger branches are as noble as the head to all 
 generations, so that, as they have no money, and 
 will not follow any sort of busness, they either take 
 to the more noble occupation of begging, or fill 
 the monastries both with men and women. 
 
 An English woman who lives in this town, and 
 keeps a coffee-house, told me the other day, that a 
 lady of high quality came to her, asking releif, for 
 she had two daughters, grown women, who were 
 sitting at home without a shift. The English 
 woman, though she has been in this country since 
 ten years of age, had so much of the vulgarity of 
 her country in her, that she said she was surprised 
 she had let her distress come to such a hight, and 
 had not taught her daughters to do something, or 
 go to service ; upon which the noblewoman said, 
 she was the first ever had the impudence to even 
 her daughters to serve anybody. 
 
 t Since it is below your daughters to serve,' says 
 she, * madam, it is much more below you to beg 
 from me, who have eight children, and nothing to 
 mantain them but my industry !'
 
 276 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 But this, I suppose, you will think a rare instance, 
 but it is not, for even those of our own country who 
 have been long in this imbibes the same prejudices, 
 in particular the Irish. I am acquainted with a 
 very sensible woman, whose husband was a collonell 
 in the Queen's service ; they have little or nothing 
 (she and one daughter) of their own. The Queen 1 
 gives the mother about 16 per annum, and the 
 daughter about 4, by way of pension. The 
 daughter is a fine mettal-like lassie, and might 
 have made a shift both for her mother and herself, 
 had she been bred not to think it dishonourable. 
 They live in a poor room, and when I go to see 
 them, I find them within the very chimney, cowr- 
 ing over a poor wood fire, their heads drest and 
 powdered, a dish of tea perhaps on one end of 
 the table, and a pack of cards on the other, that 
 they had been playing at, and I dare say they had 
 old clothes enough to mend. 
 
 I talked to Madam Beaton of them, and said it 
 was a pity they were so poor, and so many of the 
 British here, who, if they were spoke to, would 
 contribute something for them ; she said, if such a 
 thing was offered, they would go mad. She had 
 once mentioned at a distance, that it was not dis- 
 
 1 The Empress Maria Theresa.
 
 JOURNEY 277 
 
 honourable for a young lady, such as Miss, to do 
 any little thing, such as washing lace, or plating 
 caps, etc. ; but it was all that she escaped without 
 a quarrell. 
 
 The lady said she was much afraid, when she 
 applied to the Queen for a pension, that her 
 majesty would have offered Miss the post of one 
 of the chambermaids of her private apartment; 
 some daughters of inferior rank had accepted, but, 
 as Miss was a collonell's daughter, she could not 
 do it without disgracing herself; and, after much 
 argument on this, and other heads of the same 
 nature, Miss declared she would rather starve in a 
 garret. 
 
 This lady has been over all the world, France, 
 Italy, all Germany, Hungary, and Bohemia, and a 
 good deall of England, and speaks all languages, 
 and so does the girl. The woman herself is in- 
 dolent, peevish, low-spirited, and discontented, 
 and plagues the poor girl to be a nun, which she 
 has no taste for. She was bred in a convent in 
 Hungary, where she would have her to go again, 
 but she will not hear of it. 
 
 The day I was there last was on the 3Oth 
 November, St. Andrew's day, which was observed 
 by the British and Irish here by wearing a cross,
 
 278 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 and our lads were not a bit more interested in hav- 
 ing their crosses made, than was the oldest in the 
 town about the same affair. I had severall mes- 
 sages the night before, that the crosses had come 
 home without the thistle, as the person employed 
 could not make it ; but it was too late for me to 
 give the pattern, so they must go without it, which 
 was sad. 
 
 The Lady and Miss said they were very melan- 
 cholly that day, as it remembered them how often 
 they had been merry upon it. Her husband had 
 been governour of Ostend, and that being near the 
 Dutch garrisons, the Scots officers had them always 
 at that day's entertainment, which was very 
 splendid. These officers' wives lead an idle, game- 
 some sort of life abroad ; all the British, when 
 abroad, are very fond of their countryfolks, and are 
 always together ; so, when they come to be left in 
 a way that cannot support that, it makes them 
 very miserable. 
 
 Madam Beaton I have often mentioned, but 
 never had time to give her a chapter. Madam 
 Beaton is by birth Irish, and was a squire's daughter 
 near Cork ; that being a plentifull country, and 
 cheap, she learned good living early, and speaks 
 yet with a relish of Irish turkies, capons, and fish.
 
 JOURNEY 279 
 
 She came to England when about seventeen, has 
 been well-lookt, and was married to one Major 
 Ducary, 1 in Lord Stair's regiment. He brought 
 her to Scotland, where she stayed some years, I 
 beleive, and where she was acquented with every 
 mortall, and remembers them all most exactly. 
 Whilst she was at Glasgow, her husband died, and 
 she says the civility and kindness shown her from 
 
 1 There is a passage in Wbdrow's Analecta, dated 1725, which 
 has sometimes been cited as showing that Colonel Gardiner, the 
 Christian hero of Prestonpans, had served at one time in the 
 ' Scots Greys ' (or zd North British Dragoons), and that he 
 joined that very distinguished regiment in succession to the 
 officer named by Mrs. Calderwood ; the sentence is : * I have 
 a very pleasant account of Major Gardiner, formerly Master of 
 Horses to the Earl of Stair, and now lately, on the death of 
 Major du Curry, made Major of Stair's Gray Horse.' (Vol. iii. 
 p. 198.) From information furnished to me, with the utmost 
 courtesy, from the War Office, it is now possible to set this 
 question at rest. The records show that Major James Gardiner 
 received his commission in that rank ' in Earl of Stair's Dragoons 
 (now 6th Dragoons) vice Major Duquerry deceased, 2Oth July 
 1724.' 
 
 The mistake in supposing him to have served in ' Stair's Gray 
 Horse ' probably arose from the fact that Lord Stair was Colonel 
 of the 2d N. B. Dragoons from 24th April 1 706 to 2Oth April 
 1714, and again from 28th May 1745 to 27th May 1747. In 
 Dr. Doddridge's Remarkable passages in the Life of Colonel 
 Gardiner, written two years after his death, there is a curious 
 passage which, by inference, seems to show that the reverend 
 biographer had fallen into the same error.
 
 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 all ranks on that occasion was what no country is 
 capable of but Scotland. She was left with one son. 
 
 She married again one Collonell Beaton, who was 
 an Englishman ; he was an old batchelor. I don't 
 think she speaks with so much gout of him as she 
 does of Major Ducary. She had no children to 
 him, and, whether he left her with mony or not, 
 I know not, but she has, with her pension, about 
 200 per annum. She had lived likeways a merry 
 sort of life, was much at London, and in a sort of 
 circle of her own, and in use, as the phraze is, to 
 keep good company. This was a little too expen- 
 sive for her, as supper-giving was in fashion 
 amongst them, and whist was beginning to rise 
 considerably in its price : she could not think of a 
 smaller town in England, where there was no court, 
 and only those whom she had considered as the 
 second rank of people to converse with : my lord 
 and lady had been so long used to shine out and 
 furnish conversation, that she could not be inter- 
 ested in the affairs of meaner people. 
 
 About this time, when she was just ready for a 
 disgust, her only son, who had gone abroad with 
 Lord Cathcart, 1 died in the expedition ; this afflicted 
 
 1 Charles, 8th Lord Cathcart, a distinguished military officer, 
 was appointed in 1 740 Commander-in-Chief of all the British
 
 JOURNEY 281 
 
 her so that she could neither keep company nor be 
 alone. An English lady who had been a freind of 
 hers, was in Holland since the Princess 1 went over, 
 and she thought she would go to the Hague. 
 There was a court and company whose names 
 sounded great, and she could go to court at little 
 expence. She lived there for some years; her 
 freind died, and this was a new affliction ; then war 
 came on, and severall of her old crony officers 
 killed, and this was a new heart-break. 
 
 She then set out, and tried different places, first 
 at Ghent, and then here, where there were some 
 folks she knew ; and here was a court, and she got 
 herself introduced, upon the footing of going there 
 on what they call common days ; but for what is 
 called galla days, there are none admitted but the 
 nobility of the country, who wear a court habit, and 
 are called department ladies. This dress is like what 
 you have seen in old pictures, or on the stage, in 
 tragedy ; it is a black silk gown, made like a girl's 
 robe, coat laced behind, and puffed in the sleeves, 
 and to it is wore a very rich pittecoat. A countess 
 
 Forces in America, with a view to operations against the Spanish 
 possessions in that country : he embarked at Spithead, but died 
 at sea in December of that year. 
 
 1 The marriage of Anne, Princess Royal of England (see 
 p. 62) took place in 1734.
 
 282 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 I am acquented with is one of those ladies, and 
 goes to court on great days in her dress, though 
 she lives in a pension for 16 per annum. 
 
 This pension, I beleive, I mentioned before, but 
 you must exques repetitions, as I observe no order 
 of time exactly, though I give my works the name 
 of a. journal!. But, least it has been in some letter 
 to another, I shall tell you, (as I will have occasion 
 to speak of it by the name of the pension,} that it 
 is originally a foundation for a charity school for 
 girls. The woman who undertakes this gets a 
 large old mansion, which she lets out to folks who 
 take a room, furnish it, and board with her, and 
 provide everything but dinner and supper. There 
 is eighteen of them, only one of which I can speak 
 to, but I am acquented with severalls. This is 
 called a retreat ; and these retreats and monastries 
 are reckoned genteel here, and they often make a 
 good figure in romance, but in reality and practice, 
 they are very poor dirty holes : but hunger and 
 cold are in no disgrace in these countries. 
 
 But to return to Madam Beaton : she has lived 
 severall years here. She speaks the French most 
 fluently, but they tell me it is the sadest language 
 she makes it ever was, regarding neither noun nor 
 verb, mood nor tence, masculine nor feminine ;
 
 JOURNEY 283 
 
 these she says she can never remember, and. with- 
 out that the French is no language. She said, 
 at Spaw, there was no matter for the rain, she 
 would cover herself with her navell, meaning her 
 umbrella. She has a little neat house, has a maid 
 of this town, and a boy who sowes point in the 
 forenoon, and waits on her in the afternoon. 
 
 There are two houses where assemblies are keept 
 for cards, viz., CoubensalPs, 1 the minister from 
 Vienna, and a Count Colenberg's; 2 but there they 
 play high, and Madam by that is excluded, as the 
 devil has hanged a dog before her door, for she 
 never holds a card, which is a very considerable 
 affliction, as it in a manner prevents her from 
 enjoying her favourite amusement, as she cannot 
 affoard to lose every night. 
 
 1 Count Cobenzl, minister at Brussels of the government of 
 the Austrian Netherlands, had it in his power to be of consider- 
 able service to Sir James Steuart and Lady Frances, some time 
 after the date of these letters (see post}. Count Cobenzl is 
 repeatedly mentioned in the documents quoted by Carlyle in his 
 Life of Friedricb II. of Prussia as minister at Berlin between 
 the years 1777 and 1779. 
 
 2 Count Callenberg, ' the Bishop, General, and Count,' as 
 Mrs. Calderwood describes him further on, belonged to an 
 Austrian family originally from Westphalia, advanced to the 
 dignity of Counts in 1 654. See RIETSTAP'S Armorial General. 
 Gouda, 1861.
 
 284 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 But what I think is most surprising in her chus- 
 ing to stay here is, that she is the bitterest and 
 most inveterate Irish protestant and whigg ever 
 was, and her religion and politicks, especially at 
 present, are so opposite to the folks she lives 
 amongst, that she dare not open her mouth upon 
 that head ; everything which is joy to them is 
 sorrow to her, so that a woman who loves cards 
 and politicks, to be debarred both, is certainly a 
 hevy dispensation : if it was not the want of a 
 court, no place would make her so happy as Edin- 
 burgh. I have often said to her, I wondered when 
 she was in search of a residence, it never came in 
 her head to go there, where she knew so many 
 folks ; she says she wondered often at it herself, 
 but busness first carried her to Holland, and she 
 came by degrees to be used to these countries. 
 
 Another acquentance of mine is a Madam Jolly, 
 English by birth ; her father, an officer in the 
 Dutch [service], married a woman of this country. 
 He dying, the mother bred the children popish, 
 and lived here ; she married an officer of this 
 service, who was very extravagant, and left her 
 very little. A brother she had in this service and 
 she lived together after her husband's death, till 
 the brother died ; and now she lives in the pensions.
 
 JOURNEY 285 
 
 She is a very fine, sensible, merry body, and loves 
 the cards dearly, and has great luck. She is a very 
 moderate papaist. She had forgot her English, 
 but has got it so well again as to speak it pretty 
 well. She told me, when she came over here she 
 was nine years old, and her mother's friends would 
 have her baptised again; that the preist was 
 against it, and said she was well enough baptised, 
 but they insisted, and he baptised provisionally, 
 that, f if she was not baptised before,' etc. 
 
 ( I remember,' says she, f he put salt l in my 
 mouth, and I spit it out ; so, to make me keep it, 
 he gave me sugar.' 
 
 Though baptism is as much a sacrement with 
 them as with us, yet the church allows it to be 
 administrated by anybody, the father, mother, or 
 midwife, in a case of necessity, otherways, it being 
 administrated by a preist who had no ordination, 
 
 1 The writer seems to be exact as regards Catholic doctrine 
 and practice in such a case : ' . . . The minister puttis salt in 
 y e barins mouth quhilk betakins y at his wordis suld evir be 
 seasonit with spiritual salt of wisdome and discretioun and that 
 he suld keip him fra the corruptioun and stink of dedlie syn. 
 . . . And quhensaever the tyme of neid chancis that the barne 
 can nocht be brocht conveniently to a preist, and the barne be 
 ferit to be in peril of dede, than all men and wemen may be 
 ministers of Baptyme.' See Archbishop Hamilton's Catecbisme, 
 (St. Andrews 1552,) folio cxxxi.-ii.
 
 286 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 such as they call [that of] the church of England, 
 would be no baptism at all. The church of Eng- 
 land, with their ordination, which they think so 
 much of, and will not allow to us, 1 is all pulled 
 down by the papaists ; which always puts me in 
 mind of Mr. Logan, and somebody else, who 
 advertised against each other about the true 
 Anderson's pills. 
 
 I found that Madam Jolly was very ill versed 
 in controversy, for she said that we and they 
 differed in very few things ; the most materiall 
 was, that we beleived Jesus Christ to be the son 
 of Joseph and Mary. I told her she was mistaken 
 there, for our faith in that particular was the very 
 same ; and when I told her the beleif and discipline 
 of the protestant churches, she said she thought 
 our way was a very good way. She did not much 
 admire, she said, the way of praying to saints, and 
 that she often said to a young lady in her pension, 
 who, says she, has a great deall of piety and very 
 little sense. 
 
 c Why do you go to St. Peter and St. Paul ? is 
 not there the Bon Dteu in the sacrement shown you 
 every day, and many times carried past your win- 
 dows in the street ? why don't you pray to him ? ' 
 
 1 That is, to the Church of Scotland.
 
 JOURNEY 287 
 
 c Can you not,' says I, ' pray to the Bon Dieu, 
 though you do not see him in the sacrement ? 
 you are very sure he hears you, but are not sure 
 the others do ; and I am sure/ says I, c if there 
 were no more petitions offered to St. Peter and 
 St. Paul than what comes from Bruxells, (which 
 is every hour of the day and night almost,) these 
 poor saints would have little enjoyment of heaven, 
 if they were obliged to hear them all.' 
 
 She said that was very true, and therefore she 
 gave them very little trouble. 
 
 I asked her if she had any curiosity to read the 
 Scriptures ? She said, no ; for there might be 
 things in them she did not understand, and that it 
 would trouble her if it was so. She told me the 
 confessors never visit here, except when folks are 
 sick, and cannot go abroad to them ; that hers was 
 an old Jesuite whom she had confessed to many 
 years, but she was not acquented with him ; that 
 when her brother was dying, his confessor came to 
 him, and she said 
 
 f Oh ! Father, take care of my brother, for he 
 has lived much in the world, though he has never 
 been a bad man.' 
 
 ' No fear of your brother,' says he, ( these are 
 the people I like best to confess ; it 's your nuns
 
 288 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 and your files devots,' says he, ( that we are plagued 
 with, [and] all their triffeling nonsense.' 
 
 ' Dear,' says I, f what can the poor nuns have to 
 confess ? ' 
 
 ( Oh !' says she, f a great deall ; if an evil or an 
 idle thought come in their head, they have nothing 
 to divert it, and there is nobody so ambitious of 
 finery and dress, and, after they see one drest body 
 that comes to visit them, they think upon it, and 
 upon the fashion, and then they will confess that 
 such a gown, and such a cap, and such a ribbon 
 imployed their thoughts.' 
 
 All the British in this town (that is, the women) 
 are mostly what I call adventuresses. There is a 
 Mrs. Child, a divorced wife, married to one Child 
 a man of fortune in England. The Duke of St. 
 Albans lives here. . . . There is a Mrs. Pope 
 whose husband is an officer at Gibraltar, and she 
 in the mean time travelled for her amusement, and 
 has found a gallant here, one Sir Lambert Black- 
 well, 1 a man of fortune, who, as his family is 
 increased, is furnishing a large house ; then Miss 
 Townsend, who run away with an officer who has 
 
 1 This was the 3d Baronet of that name : he died unmarried 
 in 1 80 1. The Baronetcy is now extinct.
 
 JOURNEY 289 
 
 a wife, was here for some time, but is now, I 
 beleive, living at Antwerp. 
 
 I have no great ambition to be acquainted with 
 Madam Beaton's princes, nor with my own 
 countryfolks ; the first I cannot speak to ; the 
 last I will not speak to. There are three girles 
 in this town, I regreate, from their charracter, 
 that I cannot speak to, as they are Scots ; 
 these are daughters of one Generall Gibson, 
 near relations of Dury's, 1 being neices to Clerk 
 Gibson, whose father was governour of Courtray 
 the last war ; and when the town was taken he was 
 blamed, they say unjustly, and lost his command. 
 He had, it seems, married a woman of no rank ; 
 her father was steward to the Duke d'Aremberg, 
 and had a very good income, but by this marriage 
 the girls lost their rank of gentlewomen, and can- 
 not be admitted in fashionable company. They 
 stay with their uncle, who has the same office, and 
 has each of them a pension of ^25 per annum from 
 the Queen. They can speak no English : every- 
 
 1 Gibson of Durie, a very respectable family in Fife, where 
 they possessed lands from the time of James iv. till the estate of 
 Durie was sold in 1785. Several members of this family have 
 held the office of Principal Clerk of the Court of Session see 
 East Neuk of Fife, by the Rev. W. WOOD, p. 290. 
 
 T
 
 290 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 body commends them for very fine girls. They 
 wrote home to their uncle upon their father's mis- 
 fortune, but he, it seems, would do nothing for 
 them, till they should change their religion. 
 
 The folks here are quite mad upon gentry : if 
 an English peer comes here, who has married a 
 low woman, which is often the case, he is received 
 at court, but she cannot ; and there is a poor 
 unfortunate prince in this town, whom I pity from 
 my heart. This youth was unhappily led in to 
 marry a servant girl ; he had an office about the 
 court here, which he immediatly lost ; he was 
 degraded from his rank and put in prison, in order 
 to make him disown the marriage, but he would 
 not. He was at last set at liberty, and allowed to 
 live with her, but banished this town. He has 
 since got leave to reside here, but is no more a 
 prince, and no more a gentleman ; and she is only 
 called Madamoiselle Caterine, and his children have 
 no rank. All the coaches pass his door every day 
 to the court, where he dare not go, and though 
 this, to be sure, gives him often a sore heart, yet he 
 lives very well with his wife. He has never con- 
 descended to keep low company, and therefore keeps 
 but few; but Madamoiselle Caterine cronys with the 
 burghers. Perhaps it may be the best thing ever
 
 JOURNEY 291 
 
 could happen to his children, for they are now 
 in a capacity to make a fortune by honest industry. 
 
 It is very odd that the nobility has never found 
 out and defeated this politick of their princes, to 
 keep them poor and dependent, and, if they had 
 anything to depend upon, I would think the less 
 of it, but here they have nothing to look for, as 
 all the revenue the Queen gets from this country 
 is no more than mantains the troops she keeps in 
 it, (which is about 18,000 or 20,000 men, at ten 
 farthings a-day the common men, and, I suppose, 
 the officers in proportion,) and the officers and 
 expenses of the court here, which cannot be very 
 great. The Prince loves company, and is very 
 agreeable, but it is pretty much in the stile of a 
 private man. 
 
 Of this ten farthings a-day, the soldier pays four 
 to those who bake and bring them their bread, and 
 to a barber to dress their hair, and order their 
 mustaches, so that but six remains to live upon. 
 Very few of them marry, and, considering by this 
 and the church, how few people propagate, it is 
 surprising how populous this country is. I do not 
 see how it can bear more taxes than it has, for they 
 have no trade by sea, and severall hardships put 
 upon everything goes either out or comes in.
 
 1 9 2 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 There is a fine cannall, which carries goods down 
 to Antwerp, but then they are to take out of one 
 boat into another severall times from Antwerp ; 
 they will sometimes be ten days of going down to 
 Holland, where they must be shipped. They 
 must be taken to a fort at Antwerp, called St. 
 Phillip's, and there they must be examined, unless 
 they have first been shown, and inventured and 
 valued at the custom-house here. When anything 
 is to come up from Holland, the person it is com- 
 ing to here must send a note of the goods to St. 
 Phillip's, and, if there is anything but made clothes 
 or things used, they must there pay a duty. All 
 these hardships are imposed by the Dutch, who sit 
 like a salmond-cruve at the bottom of the Scheld, 
 and let nothing pass. 
 
 To encourage this country to trade, there was 
 a tariff of fixed duties to have been settled at the 
 treaty of Utrecht, but, as they could not agree, it 
 was referred to commissaries ; of this number was 
 Blair's uncle, John Drummond, who tarriffed all 
 his days. Then the war came on, and, at the 
 treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, it was again referred to 
 new commissaries, of whom Andrew Mitchell 1 was 
 
 1 Margaret Cunningham, widow of James Steuart, second son 
 of ' Gospel Coltness/ married after 1704 Mr. W. Mitchell, a
 
 JOURNEY 293 
 
 one, who tarriffed at Bruxells for some years to as 
 little purpose; the Dutch 1 triffeled, and so, I 
 suppose, did the commissioners, so that the thing 
 stands as it did forty years ago. 
 
 All that this country sends out is corn, linnen, 
 some tapistry and lace. There are some silks 
 manufactored at Antwerp, but for everything else, 
 they bring here all the manufactors of other 
 countries, which are alone for home consumption. 
 All sorts of silver and gold dress, and silks, and 
 women's dresses, are all from Paris, all West India 
 goods either from France or Holland, all East 
 India from Holland, and all but a few woollen 
 goods from England, 
 
 The ground about this town is very dear, like 
 fifty shillings the aiker, but it is very rich, and all 
 sorts of vegetables are cheap, and the poor live 
 
 minister of the Canongate Church of Edinburgh. Their son, 
 Andrew Mitchell, was a Scotch advocate, a Councillor at Law in 
 England, M.P., and Under Secretary of State. Afterwards Sir 
 Andrew Mitchell was named a Commissioner for adjusting our 
 commerce with the Austrian Netherlands ; and for some years 
 was Envoy at the Court of Frederick the Great. 'James's 
 money he left his widow was the foundation of all this.' See Sir 
 Arch. Steuart's Memorials : Coftness Collections. 
 
 1 ' In matters of commerce the fault of the Dutch 
 Is giving too little and asking too much.' 
 
 (George Canning's cipher despatch to Sir Ch. Bagot.)
 
 294 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 much upon them, and their fast days use them to 
 it. They make no use of oat-meall, but a brown 
 sort of wheat bread ; the oat-meall is only sold for 
 water-gruell, and is keept by the apothecaries, or 
 some shops who sell things not a-kin to it. I pay 
 fourpence for every pound of it for the boys' pot- 
 tage ; the folks with you would think we were all 
 starving if they heard [of] thirty-two pence the 
 peck of meall. 
 
 I began to think vegetables a more holesome 
 diet than I did, and the folks in this place would 
 make one beleive that eating was but a custom ; 
 for they are very fat and honest-like, and twice a 
 day is the most any of them eats, and on meagre 
 days even that is very slim. They take nothing 
 but some tea, without milk or sugar, to their 
 breakfast, dine at twelve upon some boiled turnips 
 and sallad or potatoes, and take a bit of cheese and 
 bread, with a drink of beer at supper, but eat none 
 with their tea in the afternoon. This is those who 
 cannot affoard fish on fast days ; the poor are 
 allowed to eat the inwards of the cattle on fast days. 
 When we came first to this house, we got an old 
 woman, till we were provided in a servant, and 
 Peg Rannie thought she would be very kind to 
 her, and gave her plenty of milk and sugar to her
 
 JOURNEY 295 
 
 tea., but she complained to Mr. Calderwood that 
 they spoilt her tea by the milk and sugar. 
 
 The monastries give away all the fragments of 
 their tables to the poor, which makes many of them 
 depend upon it, and not work. Severall of the 
 orders, who are very fat, never taste flesh. The 
 begging of the monks makes begging here not 
 dishonourable, for you would be surprised to see 
 such well-drest beggars ; besides that, I beleive the 
 commons send out all their children a-begging. 
 There are many very able to work, has no other 
 imployment ; you will see them standing at a door 
 and touting a Pater noster through the key-hole. 
 
 I was coming up a little street one day, when a 
 very decent, well-drest man took off" his hat, and 
 made me a bow, and said something softly ; I 
 imagined he had some prohibit goods to sell, and 
 made him a curtisy, and asked him what he said, 
 and he asked charity for two children he had : I 
 thought as much shame as if it had been me that 
 was begging, but, having learned the way of the 
 place, I gave him a farthing, for which he was very 
 thankfull. I very often surprise a poor old body, 
 whom I see working a stocking, or doing anything 
 of work kind, by giving them a placket, which is 
 threepence-halfpenny, at which they clap down on
 
 296 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 their knees, and pray in Latin till you are out of 
 hearing. 
 
 The Latin prayers have cost me severall pence, 
 for the bairns were so fond of making them pray, 
 that all the copper money was lawfull prise when- 
 ever they got their hands over it, so that they 
 never set out without half a dozen at their taill. I 
 asked somebody who knew, why there were folks 
 in such good dress begging? They said it was 
 the fashion over all this country for people to 
 travell for nothing, and anybody who could not 
 affbard to go in a carriage, if they had busness 
 from one country to another, never thought of 
 money to bear their charges, but begged every- 
 thing they got ; and the folks on the road had 
 learned to think themselves obliged to feed and 
 lodge them for nothing, just as the lasses at 
 Moffat think themselves obliged to carry the 
 men over the waters. 1 
 
 The value of money is not diminished here by 
 paper credit, nothing but specie goes for anything ; 
 the silver is of a very bad quality, and the old 
 
 1 Captain Burt, an Engineer officer, whose Letters from 
 the Highlands, written about 1726, were edited by Sir Walter 
 Scott, mentions this custom, and gives a quaint engraving 
 illustrative of it.
 
 JOURNEY 297 
 
 gold is better than the new. Money going out of 
 the country for so many things, and coming in for 
 so few, makes money of more value here, in some 
 respects, than it appears to be by the prices of 
 most things ; but these things are brought from 
 countries where it is more plenty than here, so 
 cannot be sold so cheap as the produce of the 
 country, so that the value of money can hardly be 
 perceived in anything, so much as in what you 
 give for nothing, which is certainly as little here 
 as anywhere. 
 
 Labour is not cheap, because those who labour 
 most have wherewithall to purchase foreign com- 
 modities, but to give away a skilling here for 
 nothing is as much as giving half a crown with us, 
 which is the only way I can judge of the value of 
 money here, when it has no connection with other 
 places. 
 
 Our house stands upon a street which has a 
 considerable slope ; the first snow that fell, the 
 boys made a slide upon it, and hurled one another 
 down on boards and little stools, as it is almost 
 the only place of the town they could have that 
 diversion. There gathered a good number of 
 genteel-like lads with muffs and ruffles, like about 
 fifteen or sixteen years of age ; they made a
 
 298 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S JOURNEY 
 
 prodigious noise, and I sent out the maid, who 
 could speak to them, and begged the favour they 
 would go away ; they cursed and bullied, and still 
 held on. All means being tried, I was quite in 
 despair, as the snow seemed to lie with a strong 
 frost, and this would be a sad life ; at last I 
 thought I would try, be their rank what it pleased, 
 my English key, as I call it, which had opened 
 everything for me yet, and sent out the maid 
 again to tell them, if they would leave their slide, 
 I would give a skilling : at which they fled as the 
 devil had been at their taill, and returned, some 
 with hammers, some with shufles and padles, and 
 to the slide they fell, and picked every bit of it 
 off the street, the skilling being first depositate in 
 a neutrall person's hand.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 An unsuccessful Candidate : His menage : A simple 
 Ice-house: 'The Sun and Smoke : Mr. Whitnor 
 and the Nuns : Visit to a Convent : English 
 desire of Ease : Unknown to the Scotch : 
 Ceremony of a NUN'S PROFESSION : 'The Sermon 
 and Farewell. 
 
 THERE lives in this town one Mr. Hope, an 
 Englishman, and near relation to Mr. Fox, 1 our 
 late prime minister. This man, at the age of 
 twenty-one, came to be master of his fortune, 
 which was ^1500 'per annum. He set out in the 
 common course of young men of fortune, and, in 
 a short time, impaired it greatly by keeping the 
 best company, and, to repair it again, he set up 
 
 1 In the Newcastle Administration, formed in April 1754, 
 Henry Fox (afterwards Lord Holland) succeeded Sir Thomas 
 Robinson, who became Earl of Grantham ' Thomas, King of 
 England,' Walpole calls him, as Secretary of State. 
 
 The occasion of this change of Ministers was the general 
 upturn which ensued on the refusal of Mr. Legge, Chancellor of 
 the Exchequer, to acquiesce in the proposed ' German Subsidies,'
 
 300 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 for member of parliament, which finished him very 
 soon. 1 You will think it little wonder if upon 
 this he took low spirits, and, after his freinds had 
 settled all his affairs, and got him, out of the 
 wrecks of his estate, betwixt ^30 or ^40 per 
 annum. He came abroad, travelled about from 
 place to place till he had forgot his misfortunes, 
 and, some years ago, he settled here. He has a 
 room which he furnished for himself, and this room 
 is his whole house ; he mantains himself in every- 
 thing without boarding, dresses his own meat, 
 buys everything for himself, and requires no assist- 
 ance from anybody. In the forenoon he puts on 
 his frock, and goes to market, and is Mr. Hope's 
 man ; in the afternoon he is very genteely drest, 
 with a sword, (which nobody can stir over the 
 door without here,) and is Mr. Hope himself. 
 
 when places went a begging. Walpole writes, 3Oth Sept. 
 1755: 'At last we are forced to strike sail to Mr. Fox: he 
 is named for Secretary of State with not only the lead, but the 
 power of the House of Commons.' (Letters, vol. ii. p. 471.) 
 It may be in this sense that Mrs. Calderwood speaks of him 
 as the ' late prime Minister.' The Administration resigned in 
 Nov. 1756. 
 
 1 This was a common incident in those days : 
 ' Parliamenteering is a sort of itch 
 
 That will too oft unwary Knights bewitch, 
 
 Two good estates Sir Harry Clodpole spent, 
 
 Stood thrice, but spoke not once in Parliament.' Art of Politia.
 
 JOURNEY 301 
 
 His acquaintances say, that sometimes they see 
 him pretty often, and other times not in six 
 months; that I suppose is just as he is in the 
 humour, for he lives intirely to his own taste, and 
 subjects himself to nothing that is not agreeable to 
 him. It seems he was in a visiting humour when 
 Sir James was here last winter, for he came to him 
 often, and I got a letter to him from Sir James, 
 but it was severall weeks before I could find him. 
 At last I got the letter conveyed to his hand, and 
 have had two very short visits of him ; he is one 
 you must not press or invite, because he says he 
 has a great deall to do, and cannot give up his 
 time to others. His house is at the one end of 
 the town, and he has a garden at the other, to 
 which he goes severall times a-day, and works it 
 himself, and is, they say, very curious in this 
 particular. 
 
 He keeps the hours of this country, and dines 
 at twelve o'clock : however, as I suppose he took 
 a fondness for Sir James, he dined with him often ; 
 but then he must show he was so much on a foot- 
 ing, that he must dine again with him, so invited 
 him, and severall others, to a very genteel dinner, 
 which he had drest himself; notwithstanding of 
 which, there was he, drest out, and the dinner
 
 302 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 upon the table, ready to receive them at the time 
 appointed. He keeps a close correspondence with 
 England, and is still much interested in the 
 politicks, and gets over severall of the new books, 
 and all the magazines. 
 
 The thing which will look most wonderfull to 
 you is Mr. Hope's cookery, as it conveys the idea 
 of a well-drest gentleman broilling over a fire, but 
 you must know that the dearness of fireing here 
 has made the folks very ingenious to save that 
 article, and by a stove either for wood or coall, 
 they can dress, in the best room in the house, 
 upon this stove, a roast, a boill, a fry, a stew and 
 a bake. But I told you before, that I would not 
 publish that secret ; l neither am I affraid that any 
 of our travelling gentlemen will bring it home, 
 except your brothers, who, by their youth and 
 insignificance, have an opportunity of making 
 minute observations, which are overlooked by 
 those who are only received in every house in a 
 drawing-room, and there imployed at cards; 
 whereas the others get leave to stroll about, and 
 look into every corner. 
 
 Since I have mentioned them, you must allow 
 me to notice to you an observation of Willie's, 
 
 1 See ante, page 268.
 
 JOURNEY 303 
 
 which I did not think unjust, though it was a 
 reflection on ourselves at home. I had often 
 observed in the park here, a kind of hut, round, 
 and thatched down to the ground, just like a great 
 bees' scape. As it was always shut, I could never 
 see what was in it, till this day, that he and I went 
 to take a walk in the park, and it was open, and a 
 man working in it ; I asked what it was, and was 
 told it was the Prince's icehouse. I said to Willie 
 that I wanted to see it, as I had heard of a gentle- 
 man in Scotland, who had laid out a great deall of 
 money in building one ; so we examined it, and 
 found it was a pit, dug ten foot deep in the earth, 
 upon a situation which sloped behind, I suppose 
 to carry off any water that might gather from the 
 ice melting ; and that, in this pit, the thickest ice 
 they could get was put in great lumps, a row of it 
 and a row of wheat-straw, till it was full, and then 
 covered over with the straw, and this hut was 
 built above to cover it ; and, instead of being cold, 
 it was hot when you put your head into it. 
 
 f That is a very simple contrivance,' says Willie ; 
 ' but I suppose the man who built one in Scotland 
 would be a curious man, and these very curious 
 people with us are like the man in Guliver, who 
 built a miln at the foot of a hill, and brought the
 
 304 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 water from the hill top in leaden pipes to make it 
 go, for, if you were to ask Mr. Grey how to make 
 an icehouse, he would say, it must be first hewen 
 stone, then covered with lead, and for the roof 
 a marble arch, all for coolness, and would never 
 think of a common hole houked 1 in the ground, 
 and a straw cap on the head of it.' 
 
 I could not but laugh at this, as it was really 
 true, in our imitations of things in other countries, 
 rendered useless by being made so much better 
 than they ought to be. If a man has a mind to 
 make a thing he has no exact pattern of, but that 
 he hears is practised abroad, the true way to hit 
 the thing is to make it at the very least expence 
 possible. 
 
 I have seen none of their hot-houses here, but, 
 if they are as simple (as I suppose they are) as 
 their cold-houses, they may be made and man- 
 tained at very little expence, and pine apples may 
 become as plenty as onions, by the use of a coall 
 stove or a peat one. 
 
 I am now a good deall reconciled to that sort of 
 
 heat a stove gives ; it makes a large room much 
 
 warmer than the greatest fire can do ; but [they] 
 
 are not in the shape of urns, as if they contained 
 
 1 Dug out.
 
 JOURNEY 305 
 
 the ashes of their dead friends; neither are they 
 put in the place for the chimney, but in another 
 part of the room, and have a communication with 
 the vent ; and there they stand, either like a sort 
 of obelisk, or like a pedestall with a statue upon 
 them. 
 
 I have before mentioned the bad contrived vents 
 in this town, but there is one thing I think very 
 odd, and that is, that there are many rooms which 
 never smoak but at twelve o'clock, when the sun is 
 at the highest, and shines down upon the chimney : 
 there is one room in this house which does so ; 
 the way I found it out, I asked the Flemish maid 
 we have, why she had not lighted the fire ? She 
 said she had not done it before twelve, so that it 
 might be well kindled when the sun came about, 
 and she let it stand till it was past the chimney 
 head. I thought that had been a fancy of her 
 own, but, going that day to pay a visit to Madam 
 Jolly, she told me she was glad I did not come 
 sooner, as she had been obliged to let her stove 
 go out till the sun was past, and that it was a 
 common observation here. 
 
 There was a gentleman paid us a visit on our 
 first coming here, one Mr. Whitnor, an English 
 Roman catholick, who has an estate of about
 
 306 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 ,700 per annum. This man was married and had 
 a daughter, and his wife being dead, in order to 
 educate his daughter, as all these people are, he 
 brought her over here, and put her into the Eng- 
 lish nunry, where his sister was, and severall others 
 of his friends. He has a brother, confessor at the 
 English nunry at Ghent, within a day's journey. 
 To be as near his daughter as possible, he boarded 
 himself with the convent ; that is to say, the con- 
 fessor has a table, and some of the secular officers 
 dine with him, and it is common for people to 
 pension and eat with them, and lodge in detached 
 places about the convent. 
 
 Here Mr. Whitnor lived some years, and only 
 saw his daughter at the grate, which was oftener 
 than he saw his sister, who is a nun ; as the 
 pensioners have more liberty, but not to come out, 
 but to come when they are called for to the grate. 
 His daughter, it seems, died, and then all his 
 connection and attachment to the world was at an 
 end, and he resolved to settle there for life, and, 
 as he was but ill lodged before, he pulled down 
 his apartment and built it anew. 
 
 He invited me to come and see the nuns, which 
 I never did till lately. A day and hour was 
 appointed, and Madam Beaton, Madam Jolly and
 
 JOURNEY 307 
 
 I, went there. Mr. Whitnor received us in a very 
 good warm parlour, with a good coall fire. The 
 grate into the speak-room is part of that parlour 
 wall ; a curtain was pulled aside, and Miss Whitnor, 
 with two other nuns, came to the grate. Mrs. 
 Whitnor is a very decent, sensible woman, about 
 fifty, and is the prioress, the next office to the 
 lady abbess, and it is supposed will succeed her, 
 who is now eighty-seven years old, and confined 
 in winter to her appartment. 
 
 The other two nuns were young, the one a 
 grave-looking, modest-like lass, the other a very 
 canty, merry quean 1 as ever I saw, but none of 
 them handsome ; they had no vaills on their faces, 
 like the Antwerp ones. They are Benedictines, 
 and I think their dress very becoming ; they had 
 upon their heads a thing first like a night-mutch, 
 without a border, which covered their hair, and 
 seemed to pin close below their chin ; above that 
 was a thing like a hood, a little looser, but still 
 very strait to their cheeks ; above that they had 
 a brow-band, which came piquing down before, 
 betwixt their eye-brows, and up on every side, so 
 that it stood hollow above, like a large French 
 plaite ; above that was a vaill, like a cambrick 
 1 Young woman.
 
 3 o8 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 napkin, of black thick crape; and within that, a 
 white peice of cambrick, and this was pined on 
 their heads. They had a collar which came round, 
 like what you have seen coming down from their 
 shoulder to their breast, but, instead of being 
 plaited like the ruffs of old pictures, up and down, 
 it was plaited across or round, according to its 
 shape, as nicely plaited as ever you saw the sleeve 
 of a man's shirt. Their gowns were black and 
 long, and wide in the sleeves, and they had a thing 
 called a scapulair, which most of the religious 
 orders, both men and women, have, which is a 
 thing of the same cloth with their clothes, like a 
 slavering bibb, which comes down to their feet, is 
 girt in with their belt, and into which they put 
 their hands, and serves for a muff, as the muff is 
 so necessary a peice of furniture in this country, 
 that there is not a beggar but what has a muff. 
 
 And, by the bye, it is very droll to see the 
 gentlemen walking with a great muff in hard frost, 
 and at the same time not a hat upon their heads, 
 and a lady walking with a furr capucine, her hair 
 curled and powdered, with a little cap, or perhaps 
 but a point, and nothing more on their heads. 
 
 But to return to the nuns : they opened the 
 grate, and conversed very cheerfully with us.
 
 JOURNEY 309 
 
 The heartsome lass (I have forgot her name, but 
 she is a gentleman of London's daughter, who is 
 rich) has two sisters in the same convent, and had 
 once two aunts; I should have said three aunts, 
 for she has two there yet. She seemed to be very 
 well pleased with her manner of life, though she 
 thought it was strict. 
 
 They told us they rise at three o'clock in the 
 morning, and have first an hour of private medita- 
 tion; then are called to prayers till six; then 
 another hour of meditation and private devotion ; 
 then breakfast ; then to the work-room for two 
 hours, where they must not speak but on recrea- 
 tion days, which are according to the time of the 
 year, seldomer or oftener as it is a feast or fasting 
 season. Then they dine about eleven, and go to 
 the work-room again. The time of dinner they 
 dare not speak, but have some one of them read- 
 ing the lives of the saints to them, which is done 
 likeways whilst they work. On certain days, they 
 may come from four till six to the grate, if any 
 freind want to see them, and go to bed at seven 
 o'clock at night. As for their diet, they have four 
 meagre days a- week, besides three weeks of Advent, 
 which is just now before Christmas, and nine 
 weeks instead of six in Lent.
 
 3 io MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 In summer they are allowed to walk in the 
 garden on recreation days, and to speak at their 
 work, which this young one spoke of with great 
 relish ; then they have some jublee days, when 
 they are allowed to be merry, and to play them- 
 selves, and dance, I suppose to any musick they 
 can make amongst themselves. They are never 
 allowed to see one another in private, and can have 
 no discourse but in the work-room ; they have a 
 porteress who sees every one to her own cell at 
 night ; and when they are sick, they are brought 
 to an infirmary room, where they are attended by 
 physicians. None of the pensioners are allowed 
 to go into the nuns' wards, nor anybody whatever. 
 They wear no linnen, nor sleep in it, but in sheets 
 of sarge, and have no fire but in the work-room. 
 
 The lady abbess orders all in common matters, 
 but the Bishop of Mechlen is over her in extra- 
 ordinaries. He is very strict, and they told us 
 that an English lady, who came over here and 
 turned catholick, and pensioned in their house, 
 begged of the abbess that she would allow her to 
 see the cells of the nuns. The lady abbess wrote 
 to the bishop for his leave to grant that, but he 
 said he would willingly give her two pounds of his 
 blood, but could not grant that.
 
 JOURNEY 311 
 
 Poor old creature,' says the nun, { if he had 
 had two pound of blood to give, he would not 
 have denied that.' 
 
 They told us of another English catholick lady, 
 who came over to try how she would like to be a 
 nun ; she was about forty, and a widow, but she 
 could comply with everything but the silence, and 
 speak she often would, and was reproved. The 
 lady abbess, in a grave lecture upon that subject, 
 told her 
 
 'Our founder St. Benedict says, that women 
 should be silent.' 
 
 f Your founder St. Benedict,' says she, c was 
 an old fool for saying so ; what did he think a 
 woman's tongue was made for?' 
 
 So she tired of them, and they of her ; so they 
 parted. 
 
 We drank tea, and they chatted very merrily, 
 and all the time Mr. Whitnor was just delighted. 
 He looks upon them all as his children, and jokes, 
 and is very merry with them, and always, when he 
 speaks of the nuns, he says, c we,' and the lady 
 abbess, 'our reverend mother.' He is a well-bred, 
 precise sort of man, and an intelligent, bookish 
 man, but he has that sort of want of apprehension, 
 that I told you I found in many of the English, I
 
 3 i2 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 should rather say comprehension. For he was tell- 
 ing me the state of the convent, as to offices in it, 
 and how they were filled up when vacant ; that the 
 lady abbess was chosen by the nuns by ballot ; 
 that every one put in any name she pleased, and 
 the two who had the most votes were put in again, 
 and she who had the most was chosen ; and, if they 
 could not agree, the bishop named one for them. 
 
 I asked him if the office of lady abbess was of 
 that nature, that a nun might say she was ambitious 
 of it, or was it supposed that, out of modesty, she 
 was to decline it, like the bishops of England, or 
 the Speaker of the House of Commons ? But let 
 me put that question in what light I could, the 
 devil a bit he could understand what I meant ; and 
 all that I learned was, that if she was chosen, she 
 could neither decline the office, nor demit it, nor 
 could be turned out for any naturall inability ; but, 
 whether it was an honour to be aspired to, or too 
 great an one for a modest person to think them- 
 selves worthy of, it is not my fault if I cannot tell 
 you. 
 
 There is, below the abbess, many offices, which 
 are all filled up the same way. The prioress has 
 the affairs in all seculars, to order the money and 
 outgivings of all kinds ; then under her are pro-
 
 JOURNEY 313 
 
 visors of meat and drink, pantry and cellar-keepers, 
 etc., and under them lay sisters, to go to market 
 and cook : over the kitchen is a nun officer, and 
 they have five or six tables to dress for, every day. 
 There is the reverend mother's, the nuns' profest, 
 the novices', the pensioners', the confessor's, and 
 the lay sisters'. They have about twenty-nine nuns, 
 fourteen pensioners, and twelve lay sisters. Their 
 revenue is about 500 per annum y whither it is in 
 lands or money, I know not ; but I suppose it is 
 in money, as every nun gives in a portion of about 
 j4OO or ^500. Madam Beaton told me she saw 
 a girl professed there who had 1500, which they 
 got, and she died in about a month after, and was 
 laid in her coffin in the chapel, with her vows in 
 her hand, the same day month she was professed. 
 
 Mr. Whitnor carried us to his apartment, which 
 he has built adjoining to the convent, and there he 
 has a very pretty room, most finely ornamented 
 with pictures and mirrour, and a great deall of 
 curious fine china. Off that room, on the one 
 hand, is a small bedchamber, very neat, and off 
 the other is a closet or dressing [room], all round 
 with books, fidles, and flutes, as he is a great musi- 
 cian. He has a pretty garden at a little distance 
 from his house, which he has full of fruit and
 
 314 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 flowers. I saw an everlasting flower in his house, 
 which is very pretty ; it is the female piony, with 
 a scarlet flower and a black berry, which keeps the 
 coulour all the year after it is pulled. His servant 
 has a room near him, and his companion, the con- 
 fessor, ha"s his house adjoining. He keeps the 
 convent hours, has severall cronies with whom he 
 meets at a millener's shop near, which he calls his 
 coffee-house. The woman gives him coffee every day 
 at three o'clock ; from that he walks or pays a visit ; 
 and in this way has Mr. Whitnor lived now these 
 one and twenty years. He seems to be very happy, 
 and if the want of care can make him so, he may. 
 
 That giving up of the world so much amongst 
 the Roman catholicks, makes them divest them- 
 selves of care much easier than we can do ; and 
 there is a certain desire of ease, and what I may 
 call a selfishness, that the English has, which is un- 
 known to us, that makes so many of them give up 
 their country and freinds with greater ease than we 
 can do, either to wander about amongst strangers, 
 quite alone, or to sit down amongst them, and care 
 for nobody. Whereas the Scots folks are continu- 
 ally labouring and fighting for somebody whose 
 interest they espouse, so as to make it trouble 
 them as much as it was their own. When our
 
 JOURNEY 315 
 
 children are off our hand, we take up our grand- 
 children ; when we have none of these, then there 
 is brothers, nephews, and cousines, whom we love 
 and they care not for us, with whom we vex our- 
 selves. However, if our intentions are good, I 
 must give this humour the preferance, as I think 
 there can no life be agreeable to God which is not 
 usefull to man. 
 
 And if I was Mr. Whitnor, I would rather 
 bring up some young family for the world, than 
 clok 1 over a parcell of barren nuns, and take 
 sometimes pleasure and sometimes trouble. 
 
 Since this is the chapter of the nuns, I must tell 
 you that I saw one professed soon after I came 
 here. It was in the convent I wrote you I had 
 gone to speak to the girl about this house ; it was 
 not her, but another, who was daughter to some of 
 the principle people in this town that is not the 
 nobility, but in the town's people are included 
 the law, and all other professions which bring in 
 money. What made a great crowd run to this 
 profession was, that Madam Coubinsall, the 
 minister's lady, was to attend her, and give her 
 away, as they call it. 
 
 The parrade came : and first, she was preceeded 
 
 1 A ' clocking hen ' is one sitting on eggs.
 
 3i6 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 by severall little girls, one of whom carried a 
 basket with something in it, I suppose a crown of 
 gum-flowers, which was afterwards put on her ; 
 then came Madam Coubinsall, finely dressed, 
 leading her in. The bride was dressed in a white 
 silver tiusia, 1 a suit of blonds, and a large bouchee. 2 
 The altar is railed in, and a space about it for the 
 company who attend; it was guarded by two 
 hussars, to keep out the crowd. The high preist, 
 who was to profess her, was an old reverend-like 
 man, and, when dressed in all his robes of gold 
 and silver, was as like old Aaron as ever I saw 
 anything in my life. At the end of the arrea 
 about the altar was the grate of the convent, 
 within which were all the nuns and pensioners. 
 
 I never heard of a nun to be professed, but 
 what was a vastly pretty girl, about seventeen, 
 who was going in against all her friends' will : this 
 one did not answer this character, for she was 
 about thirty, not handsome, being black, with a 
 very low forehead, and, in short, one who might 
 
 1 Tysche, or Tusche ? a girdle or belt 
 
 ' Richt costlie grein 
 Her tusche" was with silver well besene.' 
 
 MaitlantTf Poems ; quoted by JAMIESON. 
 
 2 Bochee, Buckasie ? (Fr. boccasin} a kind of fine buckram. 
 JAMIESON.
 
 JOURNEY 317 
 
 be spared. Her parents, they said, was against 
 it, but I imagine they always say so to make the 
 nun's merit the greater. Her nun's clothes were 
 laid upon the table behind which she sat ; it was 
 the white vaill she was to take, that is, she was to 
 enter her noviscet, for there is here no public cere- 
 mony in takeing the black vaill, and last vows, 
 for that is done within the convent, after a year's 
 wearing the white, in which time they can repent. 
 
 First, we had musick and anthems, then we had 
 prayers and mass : Aaron was supported by two 
 preists, as they appeared by their robes, but the 
 one was only a deacon, and the other a sub-deacon. 
 The sub-deacon was a young fellow, who had a 
 merry side of a face and a sad ; that which was 
 next the preist was very grave, but I thought he 
 smiled with the other : I suppose these youths 
 soon learn to look more ways than one at a time. 
 After the mass, a Capucine, with a red beard, went 
 up to the pulpit and preached. The Capucines are 
 commonly imployed to preach, but the method 
 here is not to stress themselves by saying too 
 much at once; and this, I think, your minister 
 may addope, though it is done by the papaists. 
 
 He first made an introduction to his discourse, 
 then sat down and took a snuff; in the meantime,
 
 3i8 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 we got a tune on the organ, but, since you have 
 no organ but Miss Thomas's, you must use what 
 you have. Then he got up, and made a discourse, 
 upon the subject, I suppose, of the vanity of this 
 world, then sat down ; and, after another tune and 
 another snuff, he got up again, with an address to 
 the bride, on the wisdom of her choice, and in- 
 couraging her to keep to her threap. 1 He had 
 a good deall of action, but stiff; he clinched his 
 fist all but his little finger, and what with his 
 demonstration with that, and the gaging of his 
 beard, I would certainly have inclined to laugh, 
 had I not been like to be pressed to death by the 
 crowd. After the sermon, the bride received the 
 sacrament, kneeling at the altar. 
 
 I must not here omit to remarque the sincerity 
 of the catholic ladies' devotions ; they had books 
 in their hands, and their mouths were going very 
 fast, at the same time they were smilling and 
 curtesying to one another. The poor bride was 
 very serious, and never looked up. 
 
 After all the service was over, Madam Coubin- 
 sall took her by the hand, and led her out at a little 
 door by the side of the altar, into the convent, 
 
 1 A pertinacious affirmation. JAMIESON. The expression 
 ' to threap ' is more common.
 
 JOURNEY 319 
 
 where she was undressed, and she returned in a 
 black plaid, which they call here a voill, and is 
 what everybody who is not drest, or the common 
 people, walks the streets in. When she returned, 
 it was not into the chapell, but to the room the 
 nuns were in, within the grate ; she came forward 
 to the grate, in which a small door opened, and 
 she put out her head, and the preist put on her 
 cap and her brow-band, and then on her gown, and 
 then pined on her white vaill upon her head, and 
 the crown with the gum-flowers on the one side of 
 her head, as neatly as if he had been bred a milliner. 
 After she was dressed, I thought she looked 
 better than before, as the brow-band hid the low- 
 ness of her forehead. She kneeled down at a 
 table, and prayed ; then they put a lighted wax- 
 candle in her hand, and with this she walked round 
 and kissed all the nuns, who welcomed her to the 
 society ; and, after this, she kissed all her freinds, 
 and bid them farewell ; then she came to the grate, 
 and kissed all those who had not gone in with her, 
 and shaked others by the hand through the grate, 
 and curtsied to all the company : and this she did 
 with the greatest face of joy, laughing and smilling 
 to every one. After this, the curtain within the 
 grate was drawn, which closed the ceremony.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Concerts and Masked Balls : Theatrical : Passage 
 of Arms with Captain Hew : Eccentricities of 
 Captain Hew and Lady Nell : Lord Bellew : 
 Mr. Butler and Mr. O'Farle: At COUNT 
 CALLENBERG'S : Economy in High places: The 
 Jesuits outwitted: A Scotch Tailor and a 
 Franciscan Friar from the Wars: German and 
 French Politics: Despatch of the MS. 
 
 WHEN Lady Helen Dairy mple was here we 
 went to the comedy, of which the people here are 
 very fond, for what reason I know not, for they 
 say they are very bad actors ; but there is no other 
 diversion, except sometimes a concert, upon the 
 footing of ours in Edinburgh. 1 All their dancing 
 
 1 At this period the St. Cecilia Musical Society of Edinburgh, 
 of which Handel entertained a high opinion, was in the full 
 vigour of its existence. The concerts were held in St. Cecilia 
 Hall, a little off the Cowgate, the performers being for the most 
 part gentlemen.
 
 MRS. C ALDER WOOD'S JOURNEY 321 
 
 meetings are in masque ; there are some given 
 gratis on court days. The method is, they go, 
 after paying their court, home to undress, and put 
 on their masque habits, at eleven o'clock at night ; 
 at twelve they meet at the house where the plays 
 are held, but it is floored over the pitt. There the 
 whole riff-raff of the town comes, and dances away, 
 and makes a prodigious crowd. They take off 
 their masques when it turns hot, and what 
 diversion that must be, to be mobbed by taliors 
 and mantua-makers, I cannot understand. My 
 mantua-maker, who is far from being in such a 
 genteel stile as many of her trade in Edinburgh, 
 asked me if I was at the ball at court last ? I said 
 no. 
 
 c But I was there,' says she, ' and my two 
 daughters, and danced till five in the morning.' 
 
 * And with whom did you dance ?' says I. 
 
 c With all the great counts,' says she, and the 
 Prince, and all the great ladies.' 
 
 The plays here are seldom one play to an end, 
 but bits of medley acts of different kinds. The 
 play I saw was of that nature: first, we had a 
 thing of one act called The Mistakes, which con- 
 sisted in nothing (by what I could understand and 
 was explained) but what happens very often, the
 
 322 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 mistakes of messages, and wrong delivery of 
 letters. 
 
 Next came such another in the Chinese taste, in 
 the fancy of our oracle ; and at the last was per- 
 formed what they call a Chinese masque, which was 
 a very pretty show. At the far end of the stage 
 were so many benches, raised one above another, 
 and people dressed in Chinese habits set on them, 
 which looked so like the great china shop I saw at 
 Amsterdam, that I daresay it has been coppied 
 from it, or some such ; at the sound of the musick 
 they began to move, first their hands, then their 
 heads, and then got up, and jumped down from 
 bench to bench, till they came to the stage, and 
 then they danced in all the various shapes you can 
 imagine. They had amongst them a set of 
 tumblers, and danced on their hands, and their feet 
 up, then they all danced what the bairns call 
 co-cuddy? and then on their hands and feet, like 
 so many frogs. 
 
 Then came a procession of the emperor and 
 empress, carried in chairs on men's shoulders, and 
 so many candles carried before them ; and this was 
 
 1 ' Cur-cuddy,' a game in which children dance in a circle 
 'on their hunkers;' the same as that called 'Harry Hurcheon ' 
 in the north of Scotland.
 
 JOURNEY 323 
 
 so like St. Michaell, that I declare I thought 
 shame to look about to Mr. Nidham, who was 
 sitting next me, till he said 
 
 4 Here now is a Chinese procession.' 
 
 Then came the emperor's children, in a car 
 drawn by a little horse, and in short, the oddest 
 sort of variety one can imagine. I admired the 
 ingenuity of the contrivance, and laughed at the 
 oddness of the thing, till I was like to die : we 
 had carried the boys there, who were highly 
 diverted. 
 
 The Prince was there, and his sister Madam 
 Roiall, as they call her ; she is the head of the 
 channonesses at Mons, and comes here upon any 
 great court days. She is a good, grave-looking 
 woman, and sat and knoted all the time, like my 
 Lady Ross. The Prince's box is, as it were, where 
 Lady Bredalban's is, but goes back behind like a 
 closet, and has a table with candles upon it. All 
 the other boxes are fitted up like the Dutchess of 
 Hamilton's, with red English paper, and the 
 pillars betwixt them painted. There are three 
 stories of boxes, which makes it high in the roof, 
 and looks neat, but it makes it look larger than 
 it is. 
 
 I said, when I went in, that it was a very
 
 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 neat house, but small, at which Captain Hew 
 [Dalrymple] took me up with a very great sneer. 
 
 c Small/ says he, c madam, do you know it is as 
 big as the playhouse at Drury Lane ?' 
 
 f For that I shall not say,' answered I ; f but it 
 is very little bigger than the one at Edinburgh;' 
 at which he gave, a prodigious laugh. 
 
 f The Scots folk,' says he, f are so nationall, that 
 they expose themselves by it when they come 
 abroad.' 
 
 c I have seen nothing, since you will have it, to 
 make me otherways yet,' says I ; f I think it shall 
 not be to the city of Bruxells that our country 
 need to yeild in building ; and in stone and lime, 
 and good will to use it, it need to yeild to none ; 
 and I will lay you any wadger that it is not six 
 foot every way larger than what I say ; but, if 
 anybody here is to be imposed upon by ornament 
 and novelty, it should be these children,' says I, 
 'and not the like of you, and I referr to them, 
 who has seen the other.' 
 
 They both declared, that when they looked up, 
 it appeared larger, but when they looked down to 
 the arrea of the pit, it was no larger. 
 
 c Does not that show you,' says I, * that the eye 
 is deceived by the hight of the roof, for, when that
 
 JOURNEY 325 
 
 is not seen, the true dimensions appear : but how 
 much do you think then it is larger?' 
 
 ' Oh !' says he, f forty foot.' 
 
 f Forty foot !' says I, f you are well qualified to 
 build a house indeed ! Neither of the two is any- 
 thing like forty foot.' 
 
 I was so inraged to hear an old idiot speak such 
 nonsense, that I was resolved to have the dimen- 
 sions of both taken to confute him ; for which 
 reason you will get me that of Edinburgh, 1 from 
 my Lady Bredalban's box to the Dutchess of 
 Hamilton's, and from the front of the stage to the 
 front box, that I may compare them ; and likeways 
 the distance from one door of the stage to another, 
 as I have made a guess of this by the curtain ; it 
 is made of a red stamped English stuff, which is 
 
 1 The Edinburgh theatre of those days was situated in a 
 space a little off the Canongate, on the south side, called the 
 Playhouse Close. Here figured Mrs. Ward, the beautiful Mrs. 
 Bellamy, and the elegant Mr. Digges. At the moment of Mrs. 
 Calderwood's writing, that is, on the I4th Dec. 1756, was taking 
 place the most momentous incident in the annals of the Scottish 
 stage, namely, the production in this theatre of Douglas, a tragedy 
 from the pen of a Scots minister, the Rev. John Home. 
 
 It is noticeable that the writer's sister, Lady Buchan, seems 
 also to have taken an interest in things theatrical. A few 
 years later she was in the habit of entertaining Mr. Garrick at 
 her house at Walcot, near Bath.
 
 326 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 scrimp three quarters wide, and there are ten 
 breadths in it, which makes about nineteen foot. 
 
 If the folks in Edinburgh ever build a play- 
 house, I think the dimensions of this, and the 
 fitting up, will answer them as well as they could 
 wish ; it is warm and compact, and good for hear- 
 ing, and cheap ; for if they take their own ideas of 
 such a thing, they will spoill it by making it too 
 good. 
 
 The Prince is very fond of the comedy, and 
 stood on his feet the whole night, and laughed 
 most heartily. I did not think any of the 
 ladies here very handsome ; they are all big-faced 
 and flaby, nor much of any of the gentlemen 
 I saw. 
 
 Captain Hew and Lady Nell made a good figure 
 here ; she told everybody she was to winter at 
 London or Bath, he said he would go to Scotland 
 before the end of winter, and Anne [the chamber- 
 maid] told everybody that they were going straight 
 to Edinburgh. Mr. Ferguson called there one day, 
 and they were denied, for sometimes they were 
 visible, sometimes not, and Anne came to the door 
 to him. Says he 
 
 c Well, you '11 be a travelled lady when you have 
 wintered at Bath and London.'
 
 JOURNEY 327 
 
 ' Dinna beleive that,' says she ; ' deil a bit we '11 
 halt or we be in Auld Reeky.' 
 
 Lady Nell bought a gown, and quarled with the 
 talior that made it ; the captain bought some era- 
 vates, and quarled with the woman that made them, 
 and she scolded him like a tinkler ; he bespoke a 
 sute of blonds in a shop, and went off without 
 taking them. In short, he went upon the supposi- 
 tion that, as he was an Englishman, he was sup- 
 posed to have so much money, that he was to be 
 imposed upon in everything; whereas, the people 
 of this country have as much deallings with the 
 English as with anybody whatever, and deall very 
 much in the English way, at a word, that is, the 
 folks of any busness. But there are some folks 
 who gather so much wisdom and experience more 
 than they have use for, by being abroad, that they 
 cannot carry it all, and therefore part often with 
 the usefull to keep the superflous, or else the 
 superflous renders the rest useless, which I am 
 afraid was the case with the captain. 
 
 They lodged in the house we had when we 
 came first, but all the complaints of hunger, cold, 
 and ill service, and imposition, were made to me 
 upon that house. I told them just what I paid, 
 and they thought it very [unreasonable ; that I
 
 328 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 had never travelled before, and therefore just 
 trusted to providence, and gave folks what they 
 asked ; and I had been very lucky, it seemed. 
 And when they cast up to the girls, that they had 
 served us better than them, they denied the fact, 
 but said they would rather keep us for nothing, 
 than them for never so much. 
 
 c Ay,' says Lady Nelly, f Mrs. Calderwood is 
 a good-natured woman, and does not give herself 
 much trouble upon those heads.' 
 
 'Well,' says they, f madam, and she was well 
 served, you own ; and where is the occasion to 
 give yourself trouble to be ill served ?' 
 
 There was a poor lame officer who lodged above 
 them, and he limped on the floor, and they got no 
 sleep with this. The captain told me he had sent 
 up a most bullying mesage to him, telling him 
 that he did not understand the noise he made, and 
 that, if he continued, he would be under a necessity 
 of making him explane the meaning of it: I 
 suppose this, if it was delivered, was in English, 
 as I never heard the answer. 
 
 When they left this, they took commissions to 
 England, as they were to be there soon, but at 
 the same time left word with the banker to send 
 all letters to Ostend which should come before
 
 JOURNEY 329 
 
 the 1 6th of December, when they left this, the loth 
 of November. But Anne, who was the secretary, 
 told (as I afterwards heard) that they were to wait 
 for my Lady Weems from France, who was to go 
 to Scotland with them, as she had a great deall of 
 money ; but it seems her ladyship has disappointed 
 them, for I do not hear she is at London with 
 them. 
 
 One of my acquaintances in this town is my 
 Lord Bellue, 1 an Irish peer : he was first married 
 to my Lord Nithsdale's sister, by whom he has a 
 daughter; he has since that been twice married, 
 and has one daughter by one of these wives, and 
 is now a widower. He was bred a papaist, but his 
 mother, it seems, set on the protestant heir to 
 pursue for his estate, 2 and he was obliged to 
 change his religion. This, to be sure, was a great 
 shock upon him, and gave him low spirits, but it 
 
 1 John, 4th Lord Bellew in the Irish peerage, married at 
 Rome in 1731 the Lady Anne Maxwell, daughter of William, 
 the 1 5th (and attainted) Earl of Nithsdale and of his wife Lady 
 Winifred Herbert, the story of whose devotion in effecting the 
 escape of her husband from imprisonment is well known. Her 
 narrative forms the most interesting portion of Mr. W. Eraser's 
 Book of Caerlaverock. The Barony of Bellew is. now extinct. 
 
 2 Amongst the penalties imposed on Roman Catholics in 
 1700 was that of the forfeiture of estates by heirs belonging to 
 that Church who had been educated abroad, in favour of the
 
 330 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 is lucky that he is very easy as to the point of 
 religion, otherways it might have had a very bad 
 effect. He has been travelling these three years 
 for his health ; he does not like to live in England 
 or Ireland, and it is such an oppression upon his 
 spirits, that there is so much ill management in 
 the publick affairs, that he cannot bear to see it. 
 
 He is a great Jacobite, and he dares not speak 
 out, and the Pretender is in such distress, that in 
 short he is miserable. I tell him I wish I may 
 never have the toothack till I be troubled about 
 the publick. At the same time, I can speak as 
 muchjacobitism as he pleases, and he is very fond 
 of me, because I tell him fine stories about the 
 Highlanders and the Pretender in the time of the 
 rebellion, and all the ill prats 1 of the Duke of 
 Cumberland. I tell him to come to Scotland, and 
 he will get as many Jacobites as he can set his face 
 to; and he laughs and is so merry, and then 
 comes a deep sigh. 
 
 nearest Protestant heir. It was in consequence of an attempt to 
 remedy this and similar injustices as regarded Scotland that the 
 'Gordon Riots' occurred in 1780. It was not till 1792 and 
 1793 that these disabilities were removed in Ireland and England 
 respectively. See SIR ERSKINE MAY'S Constit. Hut., vol. iii. 
 p. 96 et seq. 
 1 Gossip.
 
 JOURNEY 331 
 
 c Oh ! this is a foolish world, a mighty foolish 
 world!' 
 
 There is a young Irish gentleman, and his 
 governour, who has been with him all this last 
 summer ; his name is Butler, 1 and he has a very 
 good estate in Ireland, and they say is to be 
 married to my Lord [Bellew's] second daughter. 
 He is a very good French sort of lad, and very 
 well cut out for diverting himself, which I always 
 thought a much more usefull talent than many 
 others which are more esteemed. The young 
 ladies, by their mothers' contracts, my lord is 
 obliged to educate Roman catholicks, which is no 
 hardship on him ; for which purpose he has them 
 both in a convent at Louvain, within a few leagues 
 of this, and he comes and goes as he likes to see 
 them. 
 
 Mr. Butler's governour is one Mr. O'Farle, a 
 very canty, merry body ; I knew he was a preist, 
 and asked a lady lately in this town, what sort of 
 preist he was ? She told me he was a Recollet? 
 
 1 Mr. Butler married Anne, second daughter of Lord Bellew 
 by his second wife, Mary, a daughter of Justin, 5th Earl of 
 Fingall. 
 
 2 Recollects: a branch of the Franciscan order bears this 
 name, derived from the detachment from creatures, and recollec- 
 tion of God, which the founders aimed at. At present [1884],
 
 33* MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 1 A Recolly,' says I, f what the mischeif put 
 that in the body's head ? ' 
 
 You must know this is a sort of Capucine, a 
 reform, as they call it, upon that order, by some 
 she-saint who shaved their beards [and] paired 
 their coull round in the point, which is all the 
 difference. Ever since, I have been always like 
 to laugh every time I looked at him, and always 
 when he comes to see me, I think I see him sit- 
 ting with his bare shaven head, and his capucine ; 
 but I suppose he is now spoilt for that purpose, 
 by living well, and travelling about these twenty 
 years : . but the papaists are such odd bodies, that 
 ten to one he will creep into that shell at the end. 
 
 At first I thought it impossible that the men of 
 sense could really be papaists in the full extent, 
 but I find that those I could have wagered upon 
 are as bigotted in every point as any old wife of 
 what religion soever : and it is very just what 
 Mr. Dempster 1 said, that they were just Don 
 Quixots ; whenever you touch that, their brain, 
 you would think, gives way. 
 
 it seems, there are three Recollect houses in Great Britain 
 at Stratford-le-Bow, West Gorton, and Glasgow. ADDIS and 
 ARNOLD'S Catholic Diet. 
 
 1 George Dempster of Dunnichen, a Fife laird.
 
 JOURNEY 333 
 
 The carnvell is now approaching, and I suppose 
 we will have a strange mixture of religion and 
 madness ; but I hear it is not to be held by the 
 court in the common form, as there are so few 
 men here. 
 
 It seems almost every man of fashion is a 
 soldier, for, since the army marched out, there is 
 not a man, they tell me, to be seen, but the 
 British, at any of the card assemblies. I have 
 been twice at Count Calimberg's, where indeed 
 there were very few folks, either men or women. 
 This man is an old bishop, and an old generall, so 
 that you may say, as the bairns' guess says, c the 
 bishop, the generall, and the count, each pulled a 
 pear.' I do not know which of these characters 
 he possessed first, but he was a Lutheran bishop 
 in Saxony, where his estate lies (now at the mercy 
 of the King of Prussia), and he lives here, and 
 has the rank of a generall in the imperiall service, 
 for Madam Beaton calls him c your excellence.' 
 
 He has a very fine large old-world house here, 
 very indifferently furnished in everything but 
 mirrors, and some pictures; there are some of 
 the first that exceed any I have seen, and to which 
 Generall Anstruther's, 1 which he cannot get fitted 
 
 1 General Philip Anstruther of Airdrie, in Fife, M.P., son
 
 334 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 for largeness, is but a keeking-glass.' 1 And, to 
 give you a notion of the taste in furniture here, in 
 the room the assembly holds in, there are window- 
 curtains of English stuff, originally a sort of gray, 
 about the substance of a timen 2 or crape, both 
 dirty and moth-eaten, cain chairs, and no cover at 
 all upon the floor. 
 
 I heard this family often spoken of, and the 
 ladies called the old countess and the young ; the 
 count has a son in the army, and, when I went to 
 see them, I supposed the eldest was the old man's 
 wife, and the youngest his daughter-in-law. All 
 the time I sat and played at cards, I thought it 
 must be so, for the old countess was too young- 
 like for the other to be her daughter, and what 
 could tempt the lass to marry such an old man, 
 and watched to hear if I could learn anything 
 about the husband of the other, and wondered if 
 
 of Sir James Anstruther. General Anstruther, it is said, laid out 
 large sums in adorning the house of Airdrie, to little purpose, for 
 he died without an heir. A fine chimney-piece of white marble, 
 executed by workmen brought from Italy, was removed to 
 Cambo House when Airdrie was sold to Erskine, the Laird of 
 Cambo. See East Neuk of Fife, p. 209. 
 
 1 A looking-glass ; it is so called in the old ballad, ' My joe 
 Janet.' 
 
 2 Timen, or Tamin (Fr. etamini), a sort of camlet for 
 women's gowns. JAMIESON.
 
 JOURNEY 335 
 
 they had any children amongst them ; but behold, 
 it turned out that both the countesses were the 
 old man's daughters, and he had no wife, 1 nor they 
 any husbands. 
 
 f What a foolish fashion is this,' says I, { to call 
 a poor lass hardly thirty, an old countess ; if I 
 were her, I would make you all startle ! ' 
 
 c Oh !' say they, c if they were twenty daughters, 
 they are all countesses, and the sons are all counts.' 
 
 f But can't you say Countess Mary and Countess 
 Anne, etc. ? ' 
 
 f Yes,' say they, { if there were a great many, 
 but as they are but two, we say the old and the 
 young.' 
 
 The ladies in this place are the greatest workers 
 
 1 Readers of the Life of Friedricb may remember the sen- 
 sational story told by Carlyle, in his quaintest manner, of the 
 burnt Schloss at Steinau and the Grafin von Callenberg, its 
 owner ; ' a dreadful old Dowager of the Medea-Messalina type, 
 who always wore pistols about her ; pistols, and latterly, with 
 more and more constancy, a brandy bottle.' Under date, April 
 1741, it is recorded how the Grafin * was by the Austrian 
 Commandant at Neisse summoned out of the Schloss as in 
 correspondence with Prussian officers. Peasants breaking in 
 tied her with ropes to the bed where she was, put bed and her 
 into a farm cart ; by which adventure, and its rages, and un- 
 speakabilities, the poor old Callenberg died.' (Vol. iii. p. 295.) 
 It seems probable that the old Grafin, if not the mother of the 
 ladies mentioned in the text, was a near relative of theirs.
 
 336 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 ever was ; the Countess Coubensall works at her 
 tent, after her assembly is gathered, till they sit 
 down to cards, and the daughters at a stocking, or 
 embroidering ruffles. But what is a great work, 
 and what the Countess Calimbergs were doing, is 
 pulling the gold and silver threads out of old 
 silks, lace, or ribbons, and striping out the silk 
 thread out of the gold or silver ; and when they 
 have none of this to do, they take their old silk 
 gowns, and cut them down, and pick them asunder, 
 thread by thread ; and silk, this way done, is sent 
 to Paris, and sells for so much the pound, and is 
 wrought up again in a sort of wadd, for lining 
 clothes with. 
 
 There is a lesson of thrift to you ! 
 
 Madam Beaton, who is very carefull of the 
 honour of the nobility here, informed me that these 
 countesses were not doing it for themselves, but 
 for their women. Madam is doubly carefull of 
 this, ever since I told her I had met in a shop with 
 a prince buying callico. 
 
 c O ! ' says she, f he has been wanting some fine 
 chinzes, for they all use that for their camp 
 furniture.' 
 
 ' No, truly,' says I, c I saw him price none 
 above sixteen pence the yard.'
 
 JOURNEY 337 
 
 This was very true; two very well-looked 
 officers came into a shop where I was, and looked 
 at callicoes about that price : they bought none, 
 and, after they were gone, the people told me they 
 were the Prince De something, and the Count De 
 another thing, but I never remember the folks' 
 names here, let me hear them never so often. 
 
 The old Dutchess of Aremberg is a-dying, 
 which I am very sorry for, because on such 
 occasions the bells ring so that you cannot hear 
 what you are saying. The day of the year the 
 Archdutchess l died, the bells began at twelve at 
 night, and rung twenty-four hours compleatly ; 
 the Prince went out of the town that day, but I 
 alledged it was to be free of the bells. There is a 
 baron died the other day, and has left an heiress 
 of ^3000 a-year ; she says she will never marry, 
 because she is not pretty. The old man died as it 
 were to-night, and he was buried next morning, 
 which is the custom here. 
 
 There has been a great stir at Ghent lately : a 
 young man from England, who, they say, had run 
 
 1 The Archduchess Marie Amalie, widow of Charles, Elector 
 of Bavaria, and Emperor as Charles vn., died iith December 
 1756. She was the daughter of the Emperor Joseph i. by 
 Wilhelmina of Brunswick, first cousin of King George i. 
 
 Y
 
 338 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 away with money from a merchant at London, 
 whose clerk he was, came over to Ghent, and gave 
 it out that his freinds had cast him out, because 
 he had turned a catholick. This, you may be 
 sure, gained him great favour at Ghent, and the 
 Jesuites of the English colledge there admitted him 
 into their number, where he behaved very well. 
 It is a rule in all religious houses, that there must 
 be no reparation made upon them when they 
 threaten to fall, but the part deficient is deserted 
 till it tumble down, and, so long as it is building 
 up again, the house is open to all comers. This 
 happened to be the case with the English nunnery 
 there. Part of it fell down, and at that time many 
 folks took the opportunity of coming farther 
 ben 1 than they could ever do before. Whilst 
 the masons were imployed in building, they were 
 under the direction of a nun, who was the prioress, 
 and this Jesuite pretended that he had great skill 
 in archetecture, so offered his advice, and came 
 often to see how the building went on. During 
 this time the prioress and he draws up, and how 
 he brought it about is not known, but he gets a 
 lay habit for her, and another for himself, and one 
 morning they both walk off. They were very 
 
 1 Further into the interior.
 
 JOURNEY 339 
 
 soon in the Dutch territory, so out of danger, and 
 there they were married, which made both nuns 
 and Jesuites look very foolish. 
 
 We had here lately two deserters from the King 
 of Prussia ; the one was a Scots tallior, the other 
 a London tradesman. The Scots folks have an 
 excellent nose to smell out their countryfolks, and 
 they came to this house. The tallior was a tall, 
 clever-like fellow, and stood so upright, and held 
 out his toes and up his head so well, that I asked 
 him if he had been at the dancing school ? 
 
 f Truly, madam,' said he, c I was never at the 
 dancing school, but a good rung laid alongst my 
 shoulders when I held down my head, made me 
 soon learn to hold it up.' 
 
 The English lad looked very humble, and 
 regarded the other as much his superior in wisdom 
 and good behaviour, so the tallior was spokesman. 
 He told us he had gone to London, to work at his 
 trade, and a gentleman offered him 10 if he 
 would go over a trip to Holland as his servant ; 
 to which he consented, and, instead of Holland, he 
 carried him to Hamburgh, and gave him over to 
 the Prussian officers recruiting there. He had 
 served these two years, and was so lucky as to
 
 340 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 come off safe from the battle ; eight days after 
 which, he, with a party of fifty men, and a Serjeant, 
 were sent out a foraging, and all but the Serjeant 
 deserted. They were of all different nations, and 
 had been trepanned in that way. These two had 
 come together, without a farthing in their pockets ; 
 but they did not go pennyless from this, for the 
 Scots gave for their countryman, the English for 
 theirs, the folks here because they had deserted 
 from the King of Prussia ; and they were intro- 
 duced to the Prince, who gave them each a ducat, 
 which is the premium given by the Empress to 
 every Prussian deserter. 
 
 There came lately to Vienna another deserter, 
 who demanded an audience of the Queen. He 
 told her he was a Franciscan friar, and, as he was 
 travelling, he met two gentlemen, who were very 
 civill to him on the road for a day, but the next 
 day they told him he must unrobe, and take a 
 musket. The poor friar offered every argument 
 he could use, and told he could be of no use, but 
 they told him they would soon make him learn the 
 trade : so he was obliged to comply. For four years 
 he had not an opportunity to desert, till after the 
 battle; they did not beleive him, and made him 
 do his exercises, which he performed so well, that
 
 JOURNEY 341 
 
 then they thought he was a soldier, and no friar, 
 and, to prove him one, they made him say mass, 
 which he performed with equal dexterity : and 
 many such, they say, the King of Prussia has in 
 his service, and, if he would kidnap only them, he 
 is to be exqused. 
 
 The politicks here is, that the King of Prussia 
 has accused the Empress of designs to destroy him 
 and the protestant religion, that she had made an 
 alliance for that purpose with France, and that he, 
 upon that handel, which he himself contrived, had 
 done what he has done, as he accused the King of 
 Poland of being in the plot ; all which they say is 
 false, and that he behaved very cruelly to the 
 Saxons. And many a story of that kind is firmly 
 beleived, one of which I shall mention, to give you 
 a swatch 1 of the rest : viz. that he killed the whole 
 cats in Saxony, and made the Saxons buy mouse- 
 traps of him at an extravagant price. If they were 
 good mouse-traps I should not grudge him double 
 the common price for them, for we are like to be 
 devoured with mice, and can neither get a cat nor a 
 trap worth a farthing. They tell me that it is not 
 a common complaint here, for there are but very 
 few mice in the town : I tell them that the mice 
 
 1 A small cutting of cloth, as a sample.
 
 342 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 must be protestant, by their being so plenty in 
 Saxony and in this house, where they know there 
 are no fast days. 
 
 Pardon this degression, and my speaking of cats 
 and kings in the same page ; but when kings turn 
 mice-catchers, it must diminish their dignity. 
 
 The King of Prussia says, on the other hand, 
 that the Queen made a defensive alliance with 
 France, and that she was getting herself ready for 
 next year, and, in the meantime, was sowing suspi- 
 cions privately from court to court, so that they 
 might come to his ears, and give him the alarm, 
 that he might be the first aggressor, and then 
 France was obliged to join her : and that the Queen 
 of Poland and the Empress, being both great bigots, 
 had contrived to fall upon him and destroy him ; 
 that then the Saxons being under a popish king, 
 and no protestant power able to defend them, the 
 protestant religion would be suppressed, not only 
 there, but in the whole empire. 1 
 
 My oppinion of this story is, that the Queen, 
 though a great bigot, had other motives than 
 
 1 In consequence of these intrigues the Seven Years' War 
 began in July 1756. At the outbreak of hostilities the Austrian 
 army was under the command of Prince Charles of Lorraine, 
 mentioned frequently in these pages.
 
 JOURNEY 343 
 
 religion to attack the King of Prussia; that she 
 certainly intended to fall upon him as soon as she 
 was ready, and that the King of Poland was to 
 assist her ; and that Prussia, by being first ready, 
 has prevented her ; and that he has cried out 
 religion, as folks do fire when they want assistance ; 
 and that this has not been a sudden impulse of his, 
 but that he has laid his scheme some time before, to 
 make religion a handle to exequte what he intends. 
 Some say, it is that a protestant emperor should 
 be chosen time about with a popish ; but I think 
 this is too distant a prospect for him, who is no 
 younger than the present Emperor, 1 and it must 
 be [necessary], in the first place, to make himselr 
 able to effect such a law being made. Whatever 
 he intends to effect by it, it appears to me to be 
 no new scheme, for, when did we see kings make 
 such a work about their faith, when nobody was 
 asking them any questions about it ? It is severall 
 years since our newspapers were full of the King 
 of Prussia's confession of faith; in this point 
 he was Calvinist, in that he was Lutheran, in 
 another he agreed with neither. He tolerated all 
 religions, and built a fine chapell for the papaists, 
 
 1 Francis, Duke of Lorraine, who had married Queen Maria 
 Theresa in 1736, was elected Emperor in 1745.
 
 344 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 ordered all his soldiers to go to their respective 
 churches, when, at the same time, I suspect he was 
 much of Coully Kan's mind, who made first the 
 Alcoran, and then the New Testament be read to 
 him, and, after hearing both, declared he would 
 make a religion better than any of them. 
 
 I hear he is adored in Scotland for being the 
 head of the protestant religion, but I wish he may 
 not be like many an honest man's head which has 
 led his body a gray gate ; l not but his intentions 
 are good, but who can depend upon executing 
 their projects ? 
 
 The world is not as it was long ago, when one 
 man could raise his fortune, and pursue and execute 
 his schemes in a few years. The states of Europe 
 are now so fixed, that it takes more than the life 
 that any single person can promise, to plan and 
 execute anything out of the common road ; and, 
 if he should arm the protestants, and bring them 
 over to his party, his death, or the failling of any 
 scheme, will leave them in a very bad state. We 
 will not find it in Britain, but it will be found 
 most surely elsewhere. 
 
 1 A bad way ; used metaphorically as ' It 's a sair pity to 
 behold youthfu' blood gaun agate sae gray.' Blackwood's Mag., 
 June 1820, p. 281.
 
 JOURNEY 345 
 
 Many towns in Germany are half and half, who 
 live very peaceably together at present, but if set 
 by the ears, must fall heavy on the protestants, 
 who are the weakest party. I wish the protestants 
 very well, and therefore beg the King of Prussia 
 (unless he can promise upon at least thirty years' 
 life, success to all his undertakings, and that his 
 heir shall follow his plans exactly) not to meddle 
 with them, at least those who are subjects of 
 another prince, and whom he has no hopes of 
 becoming master of. 
 
 Now, I will tell you what I think he might 
 exequte: the Saxons are protestants, and have a 
 popish king who is otherways provided for ; he 
 has shown he is not able to protect them, 
 so that, if the King of Prussia could make 
 them beleive he has abdicated the crown, they 
 may call a convention of the states, and call 
 a king of their own religion, and let him be 
 head of his own protestant subjects, but not of 
 any body else's. 
 
 So much for the German politicks ; as for the 
 English, we have that only on hearsay. But 
 there is a gentleman come here from Hanover, 
 and says that the people there are inraged 
 to the outmost degree at the English for treat-
 
 346 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 ing their troops so ill, and think it very odd 
 the King did not pay for quarters to them out of 
 his own pocket. 1 
 
 1 The devil or the French take them all by the 
 back,' say they, c since that is the way they treat 
 their freinds !' 
 
 The King of France and his parliament have 
 fallen out most terribly ; he finds now that he 
 must exert his authority, as he finds, since they 
 are not satisfied with the Pope's decision : it is not 
 religion that is the motive with them, but that 
 they intend to extend their civill powers a little 
 farther, and only made use of religion at first to 
 increase their party. I never understood this 
 French dispute till I came from home, so I 
 suppose you may stand in need of the same 
 information ; it is extremely simple, and what 
 may have happened, and I beleive has happened, 
 in our own Generall Assembly. 
 
 The Jansenists, some years ago, wrote some 
 books, in which they drove some points of divinity 
 farther than the church approved; for instance, 
 the point of predestination, so far as to take away 
 
 1 The reference here is probably to the question of the 
 ' German Subsidies ' which had unsettled the Duke of New- 
 castle's Administration in the preceding year (see note, p. 299).
 
 JOURNEY 347 
 
 all human liberty, just like my Lord Kaims. 1 The 
 Pope and Councill took this into consideration, 
 and they condemned these points as hereticall, and 
 the act that was passed against them was called the 
 bull unigenitus. 
 
 The Jansenists stood to those points in spite of 
 that bull, the crime of which was, not in the points 
 in dispute, but in not submitting to the church ; 
 upon which the other party denied them the 
 sacrament, and, of consequence, absolution, whilst 
 they were refractory to this bull, and, of con- 
 sequence, rebels to the church. This refusall of 
 the sacrament, you know, made a great disturbance, 
 and, at last, it was referred to the Pope, whose 
 decision, I suppose, you saw lately in the news- 
 papers ; that, if any man, after admonition and 
 being told his danger, would take his hazzard to 
 himself, be it said, c let him receive his own 
 damnation, and his blood be on his own head.' 
 This everybody thought would end the dispute, 
 but it has not ; and now the King is resolved to 
 
 1 Lord Kames, described by Voltaire as ' Lord Makames, a 
 justice of peace in Scotland,' produced in 1751 Essays on 
 Morality and Natural Religion, in which he dealt with ' moral 
 freedom of action,' and ' liberty and necessity,' maintaining 
 that ' necessity and liberty meet in the same agent, yet inter- 
 fere not.'
 
 348 MRS. CALDERWOOD'S 
 
 exert his authority, and it is thought he will have 
 the best of it. 
 
 The people here expect they are to have a 
 French and an English army in Cleves, this spring 
 or summer ; it will be a great pity if I should be 
 in the Low Countries in time of war, and not see 
 an army, and, if they be within a hundred miles, 
 I shall see them. The troops who marched out 
 here have suffered greatly from the cold ; severall 
 poor boys, about fourteen and fifteen, were sent 
 off with them, and they write that the frost made 
 their eyes water, and that it froze upon their 
 cheeks : I suppose the poor soldiers were greeting 
 for cold. 
 
 The folks here are very easy about their 
 children ; so soon as they are able to learn any- 
 thing, the boys are put out to pension, and the 
 girls to a convent, and they never ask after them 
 more. When the boys are able to carry a musket, 
 away they go to the army, or are put into a 
 colledge for the church, and the girls wait on in 
 the convent till some men marry them, and if not, 
 they remain and take the veill. If married, they 
 turn out (if at the court) whatever anybody is at 
 the pains to make them. If they die before they 
 come to any of these periods, the parents bury
 
 JOURNEY 349 
 
 them the next day, and, to divert their greif, their 
 freinds carry them to the plays and all other 
 diversions ; at no time a parent puts on mourning 
 for a child, because they gain nothing by their 
 death. 
 
 It is a brave school a forreign service for 
 datted [petted] youths ! When I came here, there 
 was a prince lying in irons, which I beleive I 
 wrote you ; not a callico prince, but really a great 
 German one. 
 
 I have got an opportunity of sending this by 
 Billy Gordon [see p. 167] who goes over ; it comes 
 alongst with your robes, which are very genteely 
 made. 
 
 I wish you all a happy new-year. 
 
 BRUXELLS, z%tb December 1756.
 
 L' EN VOI
 
 ' Here 's to your good health ; and may you never put 
 
 your neck in such a venture again.' 
 
 f Humph ! I do not know I am not like to be tempted 
 with another opportunity. ... I have little to lose they that 
 took my land the last time may take my life this ; that is all I 
 
 care about it.' 
 
 Redgauntlet.
 
 L'ENVOI 
 
 Mr s. Calderwood's writings and style : Her essay in 
 novel-writing: 'Adventures of Fanny Roberts:' 
 Novel-writing, ancient and modern : MRS. 
 CALDERWOOD TO MRS. DURHAM of Largo : 
 ' The Secret Expedition:' Further wanderings 
 of Sir James Steuart : LADY MARY WORTLEY 
 MONTAGU : Arrest and imprisonment of Sir 
 James : ( Aunt Betty : ' Pardon and Return : 
 ' Journal of Factor ship : ' Mrs. Calderwood's 
 sons : Subsequent Family History. 
 
 'OPPORTUNITY creates a sinner,' it has been 
 alleged it also creates a writer. Though Mrs. 
 Calderwood had the 'quick eye for the world's 
 outward manifestations ' which makes the realist in 
 literature, she had not found fitting scope for her 
 pen till she undertook this personally conducted 
 tour. It may readily be imagined that such letters 
 as these would be read with avidity by relatives at 
 home, and handed about to friends interested in 
 the wanderers. In country houses from which
 
 354 MRS. CALDERWOOD 
 
 came constantly the cry for f news ' and c pam- 
 phlets,' which formed such a source of entertain- 
 ment in those days a pitiful appeal of this kind 
 fromBalgownie inAberdeenshire is nowbefore me 
 these MS. volumes, of which unhappily no more have 
 been found, would be nothing short of a blessing. 
 
 With regard to certain passages of Mrs. 
 Calderwood's letters, as in the case of Lady 
 Mary Wortley Montagu, a charge of want of 
 delicacy has been brought. It should be remem- 
 bered that they were written without any idea of 
 their being printed, and in the first instance with 
 the intention of conveying to her daughter clearly 
 what was the daily life of the party. This was in 
 an age, when (as has been said elsewhere) Field- 
 ing's novels were the reading of the young, and 
 the stories of Mrs. Aphra Behn that f arch 
 hussy ' the amusement of the old. In reference 
 to that time, Miss Mure of Caldwell remarks, 
 c The women were undelicate in their conversation, 
 and vulgar in their manners ; even after '45 these 
 did not change much, and were undelicate in the 
 married ones.' With the one exception already 
 mentioned, when any excisions have been made, 
 they have been, for the most part, no more than 
 a word or two of homely Scotch, which, while
 
 L'ENVOI 355 
 
 they conveyed the writer's meaning distinctly to 
 her daughter, could do harm to no mortal ; would 
 that so much could be said of all the ladies who 
 handle the pen in the present day ! 
 
 { My dear/ said Miss Jewsbury, { how is it that 
 women who don't write books, write always so 
 much nicer letters than those who do ? ' x The 
 answer is, that good letter-writing is a gift apart 
 from the knack of skilfully contriving a novel. 
 The reputation these letters had gained for Mrs. 
 Calderwood was perhaps, in some measure, a cause 
 of her allowing herself to be persuaded to attempt 
 a flight in another region of literature. After her 
 return, Mrs. Calderwood essayed to produce a 
 story whose leading idea seems to be an endeavour 
 to connect many of the most striking incidents that 
 she had met with in her travels, or picked up in 
 the course of her experimental dealings with many 
 conditions of men and women. The MS. remains 
 of this essay in fiction ; it is entitled, c The Adven- 
 tures of Fanny Roberts ; wrot to a friend, by 
 herself;' in the recital of which she, in the or- 
 thodox and somewhat self-conscious style, hopes 
 that her example while in her greatest distresses, 
 now happily overcome, may prevent others from 
 1 MRS. CARLYLE'S Letters, vol. ii. p. 307.
 
 356 MRS. CALDERWOOD 
 
 repining under afflictions. Judged by present 
 standards, it can hardly be pronounced a success. 
 
 If it be true that a novel should be c a criticism of 
 life/ it is possible that Mrs. Calderwood's practical 
 mind, endowed though it was with the power of 
 t observation ' and c reception,' was not of the de- 
 scription the best fitted for a task where much of 
 sympathy, minute analysis of character, and a 
 measure of introspection are required. Be this as 
 it may, f Fanny Roberts ' scarcely fulfilled expecta- 
 tions. In effect, in the one case she c had a story 
 to tell,' in the other she f had to tell a story ; ' and 
 the result, we have been assured^ is never satisfac- 
 tory. Her novel never was printed. 
 
 It is curious reading this same old story. Its 
 method evidently is formed upon that of some of 
 the most popular novelists of her time ; Fielding's, 
 for example. And it seems that the theory which 
 guides certain ladies who write in the present day 
 that, to insure a story f going off,' it must possess 
 more or less of an element inadequately styled 
 c questionable,' leading them to introduce incidents 
 and ideas which do achieve but one-half of the 
 comedian's object as defined by Johnson in the 
 Rehearsal, namely, to c surprise and elevate ' 
 was then in force. These shifts, it may well be
 
 L'ENVOI 357 
 
 conceived, never could have occurred to the writers 
 but for pressure put upon a fertile imagination ; 
 and we are not unwilling to believe the process 
 must go against the grain. c But, what the 
 plague ! a novel is not to show occurrences that 
 happen every day,' such has ever been the cry. 
 Accordingly, Mrs. Calderwood, influenced, as it 
 appears, by such notions as these, has occasionally 
 drawn upon her fancy for incidents of a complexion 
 rivalling that of anything Fielding or Smollett has 
 ventured to give us. There is the English squire, 
 with his attendant sycophant, very forcibly drawn, 
 who in talk and manners out- Westerns the squire 
 in Tom jfones ; and the young debutante who falls 
 into rough company at Bath ; all cleverly drawn 
 in a style that we know to be faithful. 
 
 It was as a writer'of letters that Mrs. Calderwood 
 shone ; one or two of these, hitherto unprinted, 
 remain among the family papers at Arniston. The 
 following are specimens of her correspondence at 
 home ; characterised as before by strong common 
 sense and close observation : 
 
 (Mrs. CALDERWOOD to Mrs. DURHAM of Largo.) 
 
 LOND., Feb. 19, 1757. 
 
 f MY DEAR ANNE, I wrot you by last post 
 about your brothers having the small-pox. Now
 
 358 MRS. CALDERWOOD 
 
 I have the pleasure of telling you I have letters 
 this day that they are both very well : Jamie writes 
 with his own hand, and Willie by a clerk. So soon 
 as they are fit for traveling they will be over, but 
 as they will not be taken into any scooll till the 
 blanes be off them, I am in hopes of geting a neat 
 country house, a littel way from London, furnished, 
 and a pleasant situation, which I think we will take 
 in the first place, as your papa likes much better 
 to be in the country, especiall as the sumer is 
 coming in ; and if we were to take a house at 
 London we would perhaps have nine months' rent 
 to pay for a sumer house. 
 
 ( Aiton 1 Scooll is greatly comended, and I think 
 we will put Willie to it ; and for Jamie, one they 
 call the Charterhouse, in the Citty, where all the rich 
 merchants puts their sons, as he is just cut out for 
 a prentice that will marie his master's daughter, and 
 get all his mony. He is lost nothing of his bueaty 
 by the small pox ; I cannot say for Willie yet, as he 
 dos not mention that particular I supose they are 
 not off his face yet. You do not say wither you 
 are to inoculat Jamie. 2 As for Tom's eyes, since 
 he gleyed 3 they may be wake, but there is nothing 
 
 1 Eton. 
 
 2 Mrs. Durham's eldest son, born in 1754. 3 Squinted.
 
 L'ENVOI 359 
 
 in that, for his uncle James gleyed so till six months 
 old that I consulted Docter Clerk about it ; but I 
 should think that since an issiue did so well with 
 Jamie that you might try it with him : it will both 
 do his eyes good and help out his teeth. You do 
 not write me if he is a serious man, or as Halicat 
 a thieffe^ as my ladie was at his age. ... I think 
 you will be very well with Betty Gibb. I never 
 saw her, but she was a vastly carfull attendant on 
 Mrs. Gib : I think they said she lost her health 
 with her attendance, and if she has no consumptive 
 complaints about her she will do very well. Your 
 sons will certainly " ride on the riggin of the kirk." 
 c I was in a shope the other day, and there I saw 
 variety of French-plate candelsticks from twelve 
 shill. to two guineas ; the fasion is now to 
 have them very high and fluted like pillers, and 
 they look very well to those who have lived 
 amongst Protestants ; but they look a littel Papaist- 
 like, and looks as they had tempted some body to 
 sacrelige by stealing them from an alter ; and it may 
 be thought it was me that did it ; but if you like 
 to have them I will run the risque of being 
 suspected, tho' I have been so much obliged by 
 
 1 ' Murrain on the gear ! let us but get Grace out o' that auld 
 Hellicafs clutches.' Tales of My Landlord, vol. i. p. 179.
 
 360 MRS. CALDERWOOD 
 
 two priests who has taken such care of the bairns 
 that I dout if any of our Presbeterian Minesters 
 could have been more friendly. 
 
 f This puts me in mind of a letter I wrot from St. 
 And[rews] when last there to Peg Ramie, where 
 from seeing Mr. Grant I told her that the next 
 governour I had for the lads should be a Papaist 
 
 priste who she would like better than Mr. . 
 
 Many a treu word has been spoke in jist : but to go 
 from preist to candlestick, which is not so great a 
 transition as you will think, the first being as 
 materiall in religion as the last ; the low priced ones 
 was of a very genteell patern, but not so large as the 
 fasion. There was a tea kettel chassed like my littel 
 one, but larger, for 45 shill., which I thought very 
 cheap ; mine cost 50 long ago, and thought a great 
 pennyworth then. I saw a pair of earings as pretty 
 as any that would cost 1 20 ; no body would know 
 the difference ; they were vastly prettely set ; 
 three drops, and quite the fasion. They were 
 ^14. I would, if you think so, change yours, the 
 dimonds of which is good, but makes no show for 
 there vallue, and that you will be much braver 
 for less mony ; and tell no body whatever ; and if 
 you think of this send them up to me by a safe 
 hand ; but first see what they offer you for them
 
 L'ENVOI 361 
 
 at Edr. that I may know . . . but they are always 
 at the tope of the fasion in Edr. Since Jamie 
 reads letters from me it is a reproof to me for not 
 writing to him in return for his many letters to me. 
 I desire you will clerk one from him to tell me.' 1 
 
 (Mrs. CALDERWOOD to Mrs. DURHAM of 'Largo, ,) 2 
 
 LONDON, Oct. 8, 1757. 
 
 c MY DEAR ANNE, I received yours this day 
 with great pleasure, for I thought you had been 
 all dead. Four weeks on Tuesday since I left you, 
 and not to hear but one line from you and not a 
 scrape from any body elles. I have wrot you two 
 letters which you will have got by this time. 
 We have been amused for a week past with our 
 Expedition ; and I wrot you last that it was 
 going to the West Indias, then we heard it was 
 gone to the Island of Lee ; at which Bess said, 
 c O they will get excellent pears.' I was realy 
 begining to think they had some sort of policy 
 with them when they had cheated so many folks 
 away to the West Indias who would have beg'd 
 to be off from such a voiage ; but to our great 
 shame and discomforten they are this day returned 
 after landing on the Island of Aix and taken some 
 
 1 Polton MSS. 2 Ibid.
 
 362 MRS. CALDERWOOD 
 
 prisenars and old cannon. 1 Our invasion of the 
 Island of May I fear was a prognostick of this 
 expedition ; our kitty-wakes was almost as great a 
 conquest as theirs ; and the fleas more trouble- 
 some enemies than they had to incounter ; and I 
 am sure, for my part, I brought as many prisoners 
 home ; and we in all incountered more danger 
 then they. The boasts that were made of the 
 secreacy, and what not, makes the return such a 
 disappointment that I supose this toun will go 
 crazy. I declare I blush at the bone for them ; 
 and if I was concernd in it, London should never 
 see my face. I congratulated Gen. St. Clair 2 
 
 1 This was the ' Secret Expedition ' for the capture of Roche- 
 fort and the Island of Aix between the isles of Rhe and Oleron, 
 which sailed on the 8th Sept. under command of Admiral Sir Ed. 
 Hawke and Lt.-Gen. Sir John Mordaunt. For his alleged mis- 
 management the latter was tried by a Court Martial which sat 
 from Dec. I4th to 2Oth, 1758; and ultimately acquitted the 
 prisoner. Public opinion expressed itself with severity : 
 
 ' The genius of Britons had for fighting a passion, 
 
 ' More civilised now, 'tis grown quite out of fashion ; 
 
 'Fine cloathes, and smock looks, and the care of the ladies, 
 
 ' Their heads and their hearts more for these than their trade is 
 
 'Tho' Britons, 'tis said, were not mollies of old. 
 
 ' The women, 'tis said, intend to petition 
 'That they may go out on the next Expedition. ' 
 
 The Mock Expedition ; or the French Fright. 
 
 - Lieut.-General Sir Henry St. Clair Erskine, Colonel of the
 
 L'ENVOI 363 
 
 upon this event, but it is nothing unless one had 
 
 heard the puffs : it was Mr. intirly. He 
 
 would show the nation had some speret. He 
 never was at freedom to act before ; this might 
 have been done three months before had it not 
 been for the unsetteld ministry. We lose every- 
 thing by our desercions ; and what not. 
 
 c The Parlement I fear will not meet in good 
 humer, and we here there are to be a new crop of 
 Patriots this winter : our ministry still holds to the 
 character of the flock of Turkeys. I always liken 
 them to sixteen of whom atempted one after an- 
 other to sit upon a chemny head that^was smoaking. 
 The Duke is expected hourly ; they will keep each 
 other in countenance. The K. denyes and totaly 
 disouns any hand in the convention, and is very 
 angry at it ; they say the K. of Pr. wrot such a 
 letter to the K. as made him cry : but the best 
 story of a letter ever I heard was Ld. Loudon's, 1 
 
 Royal Scots, married Janet, daughter of Peter Wedderburn, Esq., 
 of Chesterhal], a Lord of Session ; and was father of the 2d 
 Earl of Rosslyn. He died in 1765. 
 
 1 John, 4th Earl of Loudon, F.R.S., at the time specified 
 was in command of the Forces in North America ; where he 
 planned an elaborate scheme for the attack of Louisbourg and 
 Cape Breton; not carried out, however, till 1758. He was a 
 representative peer of Scotland for 48 years, and died in 1782, 
 aged 77.
 
 364 MRS. CALDERWOOD 
 
 which occationed all the story of his being recaled 
 and desiring to be recaled. My Ld. Loudon it 
 seems is not a man of the pen, but his situation 
 makes it improper for him to use a clerk ; so he 
 must write a letter to the K. with his oun hand, 
 which is very bad: the K. gets the letter and 
 neither the writing nor the matter could he make 
 top, taill or mane of: f there is a letter,' says he to 
 Mr. Pit, c that I cannot read, neither do I under- 
 stand it.' Mr. Pit takes the letter, and he could ' 
 make as littel of it, and what they could [make] 
 out of it they did not understand. The K. told 
 this at Court, and all the Scots folks was in a 
 feaver that their Generall had wrot such a non- 
 cencicall letter to the K., for it was concluded that 
 since the letter was not understood, it must be 
 noncence. ( Let me see the letter,' says my Ld. 
 Mansfield ; and he read it ; c the letter,' says he, 
 f has many Scotiscisems in it, and it is ill to read, 
 but I will explain it ; and your Majesty will see 
 that there are few of your subjects cappable of 
 writing so distint, so sensible, and so judicious a 
 letter.' So after the frase was explained the letter 
 appeared to be all that Ld. Mansfield had said. 
 
 ' Mr. Keith sets out on Teusday for Prussia. He 
 has great appointments, 8 per day, ,300 for his
 
 L'ENVOI 365 
 
 traveling charges, and 1000 for his equpage. I 
 saw a lady this day who had seen him, and says he 
 looks very well, and she saw littel or no change 
 upon him. Your papa continues very well, and 
 the lads are very happy at being together. Jamie 
 is placed very littel below Willie ; and Willie can 
 play a tune on the fiddel ; and the dancing and 
 fencing gos on very well. I shall not conclude till 
 to-morrow, lest some news come out either true or 
 fauls : this day the news is a peace for certain ; and 
 in short the only thing they can do is to take a 
 pint and gree. Jamie's and Willie's tickets are 
 come up blanks. Peg Rainie's was in this day 7 
 night : the 1 0,000 is drawn. I will here against 
 Monday the fait of all. I supose Bess has got a 
 blank that day she came here. All here offers 
 compts. My blissing to all yours. Adiue, 
 
 3 ' MARGT. CALDERWOOD.' 
 
 c Remember me to all at Balcarass ; in particular 
 to Soph.' 1 
 
 For several years Sir James Steuart, whose suffer- 
 ings were the fountain and origin of the foregoing 
 narrative, continued to wander where health, or the 
 education of his son directed ; making many 
 1 Sophia Johnstone of Hilton. Seep. 137.
 
 366 MRS. CALDERWOOD 
 
 friends. In the winter of 1756 they were detained 
 by the severity of the season at Frankfort, where 
 they received much kindness at the hands of Mr. 
 Burrage, the British Envoy before mentioned. 
 He spared no pains in his endeavours to interest 
 all the English he came in contact with in the case 
 of the exiles. 1 Thence they sought retirement at 
 Tubingen, in the Duchy of Wiirtemberg, where 
 they were warmly received at the Courts of Baden, 
 Dourlach, and Hohenzollern, as well as that of 
 Wiirtemberg. In 1758 Sir James was recom- 
 mended to proceed to the Tyrol and Venice, on 
 account of an attack of gout. Here commenced 
 a romantic friendship between Lady Mary Wortley 
 Montagu and the wanderers, which ended only with 
 the life of that warm-hearted, brilliant, and en- 
 thusiastic woman. f Quitting all other company,' 
 
 1 During the whole of Sir James Steuart's period of exile, his 
 friends at home never relaxed their efforts to obtain his pardon. 
 In Lord Chatham's Correspondence, Lond., 1838, there is a letter 
 dated I3th January 1757 from Sir Gilbert Elliot to Mr. Pitt, 
 pointing out, with much circumspection, the loss to the country 
 which the deprivation of Sir James's services entailed. (Vol. i. 
 p. 214.) Again, on ipthjune 1766, his nephew, David Stewart 
 Erskine, Lord Cardross (afterwards nth Earl of Buchan), writes 
 to the Prime Minister, his father's friend, mentioning the case of 
 his uncle, ' an unfortunate person, by one false step taken against 
 his true principles in very early life.' (Vol. ii. p. 428.)
 
 L'ENVOI 367 
 
 it is said, f she made it her sole study to contribute 
 to their consolation and entertainment.' Sir 
 James Steuart used to say of her that ' when she 
 was in spirits he experienced more enjoyment 
 from her conversation than he could derive from 
 the most interesting book that ever was written.' 
 
 The climate of Venice was found not quite 
 suitable for the invalid, so they took a house 
 at Padua, and a pathetic leave of Lady Mary. 
 Their astonishment was great when they dis- 
 covered, on their settling themselves there, that 
 Lady Mary was also installed in a house at Padua 
 in their near neighbourhood, where she continued 
 her kind ministrations. The letters written by 
 Lady Mary Wortley Montagu to the Steuarts at 
 this time were preserved by Lady Frances in an 
 envelope on which she had written f 27 Letters 
 from Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, which are 
 decisive of the short acquaintance necessary to the 
 adhesion which generally takes place when supe- 
 rior minds are brought together.' 1 She did not 
 
 1 These letters were printed in 1818 at Greenock by their 
 son, Sir James Steuart-Denham, in a neat volume, accompanied 
 by a short memoir, which has been quoted more than once in 
 this book. The most interesting of these letters were after- 
 wards incorporated in Lord Wharncliffe's edition of Lady Mary 
 Wortley Montagu's correspondence.
 
 3 68 MRS. CALDERWOOD 
 
 live to see the success of her unceasing efforts on 
 behalf of her friends. On her deathbed Lady 
 Mary, though in grievous suffering, sent for the 
 young James Steuart, and took a tender leave of 
 him, as she could not have the comfort of his 
 parents' presence. 
 
 The exiles were again at Tubingen in 1760; 
 when news of the death of King George u. arrived, 
 at a most unfortunate moment for them. The 
 constant exertions of the Earl of Holderness and 
 Lord Barrington had been successful in procuring 
 a pardon for their friend : it only needed signa- 
 ture ; but the king's death upset all these arrange- 
 ments. 
 
 In 1762, war having broken out, the Steuarts 
 were at Antwerp, and in May of that year pro- 
 ceeded to Spa, accompanied by their sister Eliza- 
 beth, and Mr. Andrew Hay of Rannes, already 
 mentioned. Here, it seems, Sir James was some- 
 what incautious in expressing his sympathy with 
 the successes of the British arms. At all events 
 he was, in defiance of all rule, seized by a party 
 of 200 French soldiers under a lettre de cachet 
 from Louis xiv., and conveyed a prisoner to the 
 fortress of Givet in Charlemont. He was at- 
 tended by his sister, Elizabeth Steuart of Coltness,
 
 L'ENVOI 369 
 
 commonly called c Aunt Betty,' an excellent 
 maiden lady, strong minded and eccentric, 1 the 
 delight of all who knew her. She shared the 
 rigours of her brother's prison, and ministered to 
 him in his sickness, so as to admit of Lady 
 Frances' return to England to represent the hard- 
 ships of her husband's case. 
 
 M. Cobenzl, the Austrian minister at Brussels, 
 when complaint was made to him of their house at 
 Antwerp having been broken into and its contents 
 rifled, acknowledged with regret the over com- 
 plaisance shown to the demands of the French 
 Government, and did his utmost to assist Lady 
 Frances in her extremity of trouble. 
 
 All the efforts of the Due de Nivernois, the 
 French Ambassador at St. James's, availed nothing. 
 
 On the jd November 1762, however, peace 
 was concluded; and on the i3th December the 
 
 1 In Henry Erskine and bis Kinsfolk, etc.; Edin. 1882, a 
 chapter is devoted to a sketch of the ' heavenly-minded but 
 plain-spoken Aunt Betty,' as she was styled by Lady Frances 
 Steuart ; and an attempt to define her quaint views of religion, 
 as shown in the volume published by her direction after her 
 death entitled Narrative of Four Conferences between the Ghost 
 of Mr. Maxwell of Coul t and the Rev. Mr. Ogilvie, Minister 
 of Innerwick, Lond. 1808. Mrs. Elizabeth Steuart died in 
 1803, and was buried at Cambusnethan. 
 
 2 A
 
 370 MRS. CALDERWOOD 
 
 Due de Choiseul wrote to Sir James with his own 
 hand intimating that he was no longer a prisoner 
 of France. The mistake that had been made was 
 fully acknowledged, and it was significantly ad- 
 mitted, with profusion of compliments, that the 
 Chevalier Steuart, who knew French affairs de 
 fond en comble, would have been a dangerous 
 person for their interests had he been at liberty 
 while the terms of peace were under discussion. 
 
 Shortly after his release from the fortress of 
 Givet Sir James Steuart was tacitly the result 
 of the exertions of Lord Harrington and Lady 
 Mary Wortley Montagu allowed to return to 
 Britain. Ultimately a pardon was granted. 
 Though he had done little to blow up the coals 
 of rebellion, it was felt that in the interests of 
 his son, 1 now an officer in the i2th Regiment of 
 Dragoons, it was better to admit, without reserve, 
 all that was alleged against him, in the way of 
 
 1 Sir James Steuart Denham, G.C.H. lived to be the senior 
 general, and the oldest soldier in the British army. He was a 
 very excellent cavalry officer, and was, at the time of his death 
 in 1839, Colonel of the Scots Greys. He represented the 
 county of Lanark in Parliament for many years. As he left no 
 issue, his two baronetcies devolved on Sir John Steuart of Allan- 
 bank, the sole remaining male of this once widely-spreading 
 family.
 
 L'ENVOI 371 
 
 treason, in the formal document in which his case 
 was detailed, and pardon granted for his misdeeds. 1 
 His great work, An Inquiry into the Principles of 
 Political Economy , perhaps the earliest treatise on 
 the subject produced in this country, was published 
 in 1767, reprinted in 1770, and translated into 
 French. In 1772, at the request of the Honour- 
 able East India Company, Sir James compiled his 
 Essay on the Coinage of Bengal, in acknowledgment 
 of which they presented him with a magnificent 
 diamond ring. But it was not till 1773 that 
 Sir James and his wife returned to their estate 
 of Coltness, where he lived in much retirement, 
 and devoted himself to study. He died in i 780 ; 
 Lady Frances Steuart, c the flower of Wemyss 
 family,' on the 3Oth June 1789. 
 
 A collective edition of the works of Sir James 
 Steuart, embracing several branches of learning, 
 was published, by desire of his son, at London in 
 1805 ; it extends to six large volumes. 
 
 On her return from abroad, Mrs. Calderwood 
 applied herself to the improvement of her hus- 
 band's estates, the extension of political influence, 
 
 1 The document is printed in the Coltness Co/lections, p. 381, 
 and is tolerably comprehensive.
 
 372 MRS. CALDERWOOD 
 
 and the education of her sons. With a view to 
 the first of these objects she compiled a Journal 
 of her f Factorship ' during eight years of her 
 management, which treatise, characterised by her 
 usual plain common sense, 1 and said to be valuable 
 at the present day, she presented to the farmers of 
 her husband's estates in the hope of inspiring them 
 with new ideas. Her own success in this direction 
 was great ; in the time specified she had laid out 
 6000, and raised the rental from 827 to 
 
 For William Calderwood of Polton, spoken of 
 in the narrative of travel, the eldest son, his 
 mother procured a cornetcy in the First Horse 
 Guards; he became lieutenant-colonel in that 
 regiment, and held the office of Silver Stick ; he 
 
 1 Some of the writer's remarks were characterised by a 
 shrewdness of such depth, that they were thought to partake 
 somewhat of the wisdom of prophecy. In view of the ex- 
 periences of the county of Mid-Lothian in the course of the last 
 century, the reader may be able to judge of the sagacity of the 
 following dictum of Mrs. Calderwood : 'Any man whose esteat 
 lies in the county of Edinburgh, and who is related and con- 
 nected with it, and who has engadged in the business of the 
 law, either at the bar or on the Bench, must have a very con- 
 siderable failling in his character not to acquire a superior regard 
 to himself and family, to any other person of equall or superior 
 fortune.'
 
 L'ENVOI 373 
 
 married in 1780 Anne, daughter of Colonel John 
 Balneaves of Cairnbadie, and died in 1787 at 
 Lausanne, where a monument is erected to his 
 memory. 
 
 Regarding James, the second son, Mrs. Calder- 
 wood writes in her own quaint manner, that, 
 having asked Professor Hamilton of Edinburgh 
 his opinion of her son, his answer was c That he 
 was the finest boy that he ever had under his care, 
 and fit for any business that he should be put to, 
 but that he did not seem to point to anything 
 in particular. That, as for his learning, he did 
 not seem fond of applying to the Latin ; he was 
 making little progress in the French ; and did not 
 seem at all to relish the arithmetick ; and for his 
 writing, he was sorry to say that I was a judge of 
 that by his letters. Here is my son says I 
 the finest boy ever Professor Hamilton had under 
 his care ; a second brother, and his fortoune to 
 make ; near fourteen years of age, and has been 
 educate in London, and has had opportunity of 
 seeing every different employment by which 
 people make their fortoune ; knows it is not the 
 milk and meal of a farm can support him ; so 
 wise as to be superior to his years, and yet not 
 pointing nor thinking of any employment ; and no
 
 374 MRS. CALDERWOOD 
 
 application given to the very fundamentalls of the 
 lawyer, the physician, nor the merchant, and can- 
 not be got out of bed in the morning! This 
 youth must follow an employment where he can 
 be a very pretty fellow ; the most agreeable, the 
 finest lad in the world, without either solidity or 
 application, and who will get money as fast while 
 he is asleep as when he is awake ; and surely, for 
 the benefit of all such was a standing army first 
 established in Great Britain.' James Calderwood 
 died, unmarried, at New York in 1770, a captain 
 in the 26th Cameronian Regiment. 
 
 Mrs. Calderwood's active and useful life came 
 to an end in 1774, eight months after the death 
 of her husband. There is a portrait of her, by 
 Chambers, at Polton, displaying much of the 
 shrewd intelligence to be found in her writings. 
 
 In few words the subsequent history of this 
 family may be sketched. 
 
 On the death of Lieutenant-Colonel William 
 Calderwood in 1787, his sister Anne, Mrs. Dur- 
 ham of Largo, succeeded to his estates in Mid- 
 Lothian. Of her five children, 1 James Durham 
 
 1 Mrs. Calderwood's only granddaughter, Margaret (daughter 
 of Anne Calderwood Durham of Largo), married, in 1783, James
 
 L'ENVOI 375 
 
 of Largo, born in 1754, and repeatedly mentioned 
 in his grandmother's letters, entered the army at 
 the age of fifteen, was appointed, in 1794, colonel 
 of the Fifeshire Regiment of Fencibles, which he 
 had raised. He served in the Irish Rebellion, and 
 held for some years the command of the Eastern 
 district of Scotland. He succeeded to the Largo 
 estate on his father's death in 1808; became 
 general in 1830: till the end of his life he was 
 Convener of his native county. 
 
 Strange, of the H.E.I.C. Service, son of Sir Robert Strange, the 
 celebrated engraver, and adherent to the Jacobite cause. Their 
 daughter, Isabella, the delight of Sir Robert's old age, became the 
 wife of James Wolfe Murray, Lord Cringletie, a judge of the 
 Court of Session. 
 
 It may be conceived with what feelings a passage in one of her 
 daughter's letters regarding Sir R. Strange would be read by the 
 thrifty and careful Mrs. Calderwood. Mrs. Durham writes : 
 ' His works are amazing, and he has made the engrav- 
 ing a source of wealth to the nation, as they now export prints 
 to all parts of the world to the value of 100,000. He in- 
 tended to destroy his plates that none might print off inferior 
 copys. Romney, the painter, who is his great admirer, bid me 
 ask him not to do it, for they were still worth 10,000, and 
 that as he said he was to do so, he would need a reason to give 
 to the public. So I wrote to him a letter at Romney's instance. 
 ... He assured me he would do nothing rashly that any one 
 thought might be of hurt to his son.' Polton MSS. This 
 letter is quoted in the Life of Sir R. Strange, by Mr. James 
 Dennistoun of Dennistoun : London, 1855.
 
 376 MRS. CALDERWOOD 
 
 General Durham married, first, Elizabeth, 
 daughter of Colonel Sheldon ; and secondly, Mar- 
 garet, eldest daughter of Colonel John Anstruther 
 Thomson of Charlton ; and died in 1840. 
 
 Having no children, General Durham was suc- 
 ceeded in the Largo property by his nephew, 
 Thomas, son of Thomas Durham Calderwood. 
 
 This last-named gentleman, Thomas Durham 
 Calderwood of Polton (second son of Anne Dur- 
 ham), on whom his mother had entailed that 
 estate and her family name, was Lieut-Colonel 
 of the Fifeshire Fencibles. His wife was Eliza- 
 beth, daughter of James Young of Netherfield, 
 in the county of Lanark. He died in 1815, 
 leaving three children, James, Thomas, and Lilias. 
 
 Of these, James Steuart Calderwood of Polton, 
 a lieutenant of the i2th Lancers, inherited his 
 father's estate on his death. He died, unmarried, 
 in 1818, at Lausanne, where there is, in the 
 cathedral, a monument to his memory. 
 
 Thomas Calderwood of Polton succeeded on his 
 brother's death. He left the naval service on his 
 marriage with Anna, eldest daughter of William 
 Cunninghame Graham of Gartmore. He likewise 
 succeeded General Durham, in 1840, as heir-male 
 of that family, and so became Durham of Largo.
 
 L'ENVOI 377 
 
 He was heir-general of the Calderwoods of Polton, 
 and of the several branches of the Steuart family 
 mentioned in the earlier part of this narrative, 
 namely, of Kirkfield, Coltness, and of Goodtrees. 
 
 But the estate of Polton, in accordance with the 
 terms of its destination, devolved on his uncle, 
 Admiral Sir Philip Charles Henderson Calderwood 
 Durham, G.C.B. (third son of Anne Durham), a 
 highly distinguished officer. 1 He married in 1799 
 the Lady Charlotte Bruce, daughter of the fifth 
 Earl of Elgin; secondly, in 1817, Anne, daughter 
 and heiress of Sir John Henderson of Fordel, and 
 died without issue in 1845, a g e< ^ eighty-two. 
 
 Sir Philip Durham was succeeded in the family 
 estate in Mid-Lothian by his niece, Lilias Calder- 
 
 1 Sir Philip Durham was a midshipman on board the Royal 
 George, and one of the few who survived the sinking of that 
 vessel. His career as a naval officer was one of singular 
 brilliancy. The first tricolour ed flag that was struck to the 
 British ensign was taken by him on the I3th February 1793, 
 and the last captured in the long war fell to him on the loth 
 August 1815. See Mem. of the Naval Life and Services of 
 Ad. Sir P. C. H. C. Durham, G.C.B., by his nephew, Capt. 
 A. Murray, R. Irish Fusiliers. Lond., 1846, p. 98. Sir Philip 
 fought at Trafalgar, and was the friend of Nelson and of Colling- 
 wood : he received, with other honours, the military Order of 
 Merit from Louis XVHI., a rare distinction ; and the Grand Cross 
 of the Bath.
 
 378 MRS. CALDERWOOD 
 
 wood Durham (only daughter of Lieutenant- 
 Colonel Thomas Durham Calderwood of Polton), 
 married in 1822 to Robert Dundas of Arniston, 
 who died in 1838. She had already acquired the 
 estate of Largo on her brother's death in 1842. 
 
 Large in judgment and instinct, true as woman 
 and wife, this lady had inherited besides the re- 
 presentation of two ancient families many of those 
 excellent gifts for which they had been long dis- 
 tinguished.
 
 
 
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 INDEX 
 
 AIX-LA-CHAPELI.E, TREATY OF, 
 
 150, 292. 
 
 Aldenburgh, Countess of, 98. 
 Alexander, Provost, 3. 
 Altare Damascenum, xlv. 
 Amsterdam, 10, 106, 108, 109, in. 
 Anne, 'Princess Governess,' 62, 
 
 94-5, 97, 281. 
 
 Anstruther, General Philip, 333. 
 Anstruther-Thomson,Margaret,376. 
 Antwerp, 135, 136, 138, 140, 142, 
 
 145-6. 
 
 Ardennes, 181, 223. 
 Argyle, Archibald, Marquis of, xxx. 
 
 BAILLIE OF JERVISWOOD, 244. 
 Baltimore, Frederick, Seventh 
 
 Lord, 28. 
 
 Balneaves, Anne, 373. 
 Barnard, Lady Anne, 137. 
 Barrington, Lord, 368. 
 Beaton, Colonel, 280. 
 Madame, 199 et seq., 278 
 
 etseq,, 283-4, 306, 336. 
 Beguines, 261 et seq. 
 Bellamy, Mrs., actress, 325. 
 Bellew, John, Fourth Lord, 329 
 
 et seq. 
 
 Bentinck, William, Count, 98. 
 Bergen-op-Zoom, 132, 134. 
 Beverley, Dr., of Cambridge, 95. 
 Bishop, Sir Cecil, of Parkham, 29. 
 
 Miss, 29. 
 
 Blackwood, Miss, 30. 
 
 Blackwell, Sir Lambert, Bart., 288. 
 
 Blair, Sir Adam, of Carbery, 171. 
 
 Father, 170-1. 
 
 Blakeney, Lieut. -General Lord, 
 
 Iviii, 134, 207. 
 Bland, General Humphrey, 207. 
 
 Bowles, Mr., 47, 57, 117. 
 Boyle, Henry, Earl of Shannon, 
 198. 
 
 Hon. Hamilton (Sixth Earl 
 
 of Cork and Orrery), 197-8. 
 Braxfield, Lord, 168. 
 Brown, Professor Rev. William, 48. 
 Count Ulysses, 206. 
 
 General, 207. 
 
 Bruce, Lady Charlotte, 377. 
 Brussels, 235-6, et seq. 258, et 
 
 M?. 264-7, 274-7, 297, 307-13, 
 
 324. 
 Buchan, Agnes Countess of, xlv, 
 
 Hi, 42, 325. 
 Henry David, Tenth Earl of, 
 
 xlv, xlix. 
 David, Eleventh Earl of, xlv, 
 
 42, 127, 366. 
 Buller, John, of Morval (misprinted 
 
 Butler), 9. 
 
 Miss, 30. 
 
 Burrage, Mr. (Envoy), 218, 366. 
 
 Butler, Mr., 331. 
 
 Byng, Admiral Hon. John, Ivii-viii, 
 
 24, 207. 
 
 CALDERWOOD, ANNE (see Durham, 
 Mrs., of Largo). 
 
 Mrs., ix marriage, xliv 
 
 Jacobite sympathy, liv her 
 daughter, Ivi journey, i Lon- 
 don, 21 etseq. English stupidity, 
 27,41,311-12 voyage,45-54 at 
 Rotterdam, 62 etseq. the Hague, 
 92 et seq. an apology, 1 19-20 
 on the siege of Bergen, 1 32-34 
 Antwerp, 135 etseq. on Catholic 
 education, 152 et seq. with the 
 Jesuits, 169 et seq. Spa, 184
 
 3 82 
 
 INDEX 
 
 on the 'ten commands,' 213 
 Brussels, 235 et sey. controver- 
 sial, 285-88 on English selfish- 
 ness, 314-15 on Captain Hew, 
 324-29 foreign politics, 341 
 MS. Novel, 355-57 to her 
 daughter, 357-65 Factorship, 
 372 her sons, 372-73 descend- 
 ants, 372-78. 
 
 Calderwood, Rev. David, xlv. 
 
 Captain James, Ivi, 227, 243, 
 
 358, 373, 374- 
 
 James Steuart, 376. 
 
 Thomas, of Polton, xliv-v, Ivi, 
 
 50, 93, 101, 106, in, 128-29, 
 171, 178, 182, 216, 237, 240, 
 
 374- 
 
 Lieut. -Colonel Thomas D., 
 
 376. 
 
 Lieut. -Colonel William, Ivi, 
 
 303, 358, 372, 374- 
 
 Sir William, Lord Polton, 
 
 xliv. 
 
 Callenberg, Count, 283, 333-34. 
 
 Grafin von, 335. 
 
 Countesses, 335. 
 
 Capucines, 210, 234, 266. 
 Cardross, Henry, Third Lord, 
 
 xxxiv. 
 
 Caroline, Princess, 94. 
 Carstares, Principal, xxxvi, 131. 
 Caterine, Madlle., 290. 
 Cathcart, Lady, 197. 
 
 Charles, Eighth Lord, 280. 
 
 Charles-Edward, Prince ( Chevalier), 
 
 xlvii, lii-liii, 167. 
 Charles vi., Emperor, 149. 
 Charles vir., Emperor, 150. 
 Chaude Fontaine, 228. 
 Cholmondeley, George, Third Earl 
 
 of, 28. 
 
 Choiseul, Due de, 370. 
 Clark, Mrs., 46. 
 Cobenzl, Count, 283, 369. 
 
 Madame, 315, 318. 
 
 Coinage of Bengal, 371. 
 
 Collier, Miss, 190. 
 Coltness, xli, 268, 371. 
 Cookson, Mr. ,47, 56, 117, 148. 
 Cork and Orrery, John, Fifth Earl 
 
 of, 196. 
 Coventry, Marie Gunning, Countess 
 
 of, 27, 29. 
 Crawfurd, Mr., of Rotterdam, 74- 
 
 76. 
 
 Cresner, Madame, 205, 209. 
 Cringletie, Lord, xlvi, 375. 
 Cumberland, H.R.H. Duke of, liv, 
 
 3, 33- 
 
 Cunningham, Margaret, 292. 
 Cromwell, Oliver, 30. 
 
 DALRYMPLE, SIR HEW, Lord 
 
 President, xl, xliii, xlvi. 
 
 Hew, Lord Drummore, li. 
 
 Sir John, Baron of Exch., xl. 
 
 Captain Hew, of Fordel, 1 88, 
 
 324, 326. 
 Sir John, of Cranston, Bart, 
 
 188. 
 
 Anne, of North Berwick, xliii. 
 
 Lady Helen, 165, 1 88, 214, 
 
 270, 320, 326 et seq. 
 
 Janet, 'The Bride,' xliii. 
 
 Daniel, Father, 170-73 et seq., 230. 
 D'Aremberg, Duchesse, 192, 337. 
 
 Leopold Due, 192. 
 
 D'Aubigny, M., of Liege, 208-9. 
 
 Davies, an Irishman, 239. 
 
 Dawson, 'Jemmy,' 159. 
 
 Delft, 90. 
 
 Dempster of Dunnichen, 332. 
 
 Denham, Sir Arch. Stewart, of 
 
 Westshield, xxxi. 
 Digges, Mr., actor, 46, 325. 
 Doddridge, Dr., 279. 
 Dondie, Peter, 46, 57. 
 
 Miss, 46. 
 
 Dundas of Arniston, xlvii. 
 
 Robert, of Arniston, 378. 
 
 Dungarvan, Lord, 197. 
 Duquerry, Major, 199, 279,
 
 INDEX 
 
 383 
 
 Durham, 4. 
 
 Durham, Mrs., of Largo, Iv, Ivi, 
 
 374, 375- 
 
 Margaret (see Strange, Mrs.). 
 
 James, of Largo, Iv. 375. 
 
 General James, 358, 374-76. 
 
 Sir Philip Calderwood, G.C.B., 
 
 377-78. 
 Lilias Calderwood, 376, 378. 
 
 EDGCUMBE, RICHARD, First Lord, 
 
 28. 
 
 Richard, Second Lord, 28. 
 
 Commodore (see Mount-Edg- 
 
 cumbe, Earl of). 
 Edmonston of Newton, xxxix. 
 Egerton, Lady Diana, 28. 
 Eglinton, Alexander, Sixth Earl 
 
 of, xxx. 
 
 Elcho, David, Lord, xlvi-vii, 165. 
 Elliot, Sir Gilbert, of Minto, Third 
 
 Baronet, Iviii, 366. 
 
 John, of Stobbs, xxxii. 
 
 Erskine, Lady Anne Agnes, 4. 
 
 Sir David, Kt, xliv, xlv. 
 
 Hon. Henry, x, xlv, 42, 95. 
 
 Thomas, Lord Chancellor, 
 
 x, xlv, 42. 
 
 Gen. Sir Henry St. Clair, 362. 
 
 Esterhazy Family, 150. 
 
 FAEL, BARON DEL A, 102, 199 et seq. 
 Fanny Roberts, Adventures of, 
 
 355-57- 
 
 Ferguson, Mr., 326. 
 Fielding, Henry, 208, 356, 357. 
 Fingall, Justin, Fifth Earl of, 331. 
 Fletcher, Andrew, of Saltoun, 
 
 xxxiv, 126, 127. 
 
 Andrew, Lord Milton, 78, 
 
 128. 
 
 Forbes, Fifteenth Lord, 167. 
 Fox, Henry (Lord Holland), 299. 
 Francis I., Emperor, 150. 
 Frederick the Great, 62, 114-16, 
 
 341 etseq. 
 
 GARDINER, COLONEL JAMES, 279. 
 Garlics, John, Lord, 188. 
 George n., King, 24, 31, 32, 62. 
 Gibson of Durie, 289. 
 Goodtrees, xxxii, xli, 260. 
 Gordon, James, of Cowbairdy, 167, 
 
 168, 183, 215, 231. 
 Mrs., of Cowbairdy, 167, 168, 
 
 183, 230-31. 
 
 Captain John, of Park, 167. 
 
 Sir William, of Park, 167. 
 
 Billy, 349. 
 
 Graham, Anna Cunningham, of 
 Gartmore, 376. 
 
 HAARLEM, 108, 109. 
 
 Haggerston, Sir Carnaby, Bart., II 
 
 Hague, The, 92, 97. 
 
 Harwich, 43, 44. 
 
 Hatton, Mr., Consul, 231. 
 
 Hay, Andrew, of Rannes, 214-15, 
 
 368. 
 
 Hay, Mr., of Spa, 186 et seq., 21 1. 
 Helvoetsluys, 54. 
 Henderson, Anne, of Fordel, 377. 
 Herbert, Lady Winifred (see Niths- 
 
 dale, Countess of). 
 History of the Church of Scotland, 
 
 xlv. 
 
 Hoare, Henry, of Stourhead, 197. 
 Holdernesse, Earl of, 368. 
 Home, Henry, Lord Kames, 347. 
 Hope, Anna, xxxi. 
 Sir Thomas, xxxi. 
 
 Mr. , 299 et seq. 
 
 Howard, Lady Abbess, 143. 
 
 Charles, of Greystoke, 144. 
 
 Thomas, of Corby, 144. 
 
 Hume, Sir Patrick, of Polwarth, 
 
 xxxv. 
 
 Hurlly, Peter, Burgomaster, 222. 
 Hussy, Madame, 203 et seq. 
 Hyde Park, 26, 30. 
 
 JANSENISTS, 346 et seq. 
 Jeffrey, Francis, 168.
 
 INDEX 
 
 Jesuits, 152, 157, 169 et seq., 193, 
 
 338. 
 
 Jews, 104, 250 a seq. 
 Johnstone, Soph., of Hilton, 137, 
 
 365. 
 Jolly, Madame, 284-85, 286 et seq., 
 
 306. 
 
 Joseph II., Emperor, 169. 
 Journal of Factor ship, 372. 
 Jus Populi vindicatutn, xxxiii. 
 
 KEITH, FIELD-MARSHAL JAMES, 
 206. 
 
 Mr., 364. 
 
 Kensington Palace, 31, 32. 
 
 LANDEN, FIELD OF, 181. 
 
 Legge, Mr., Chan, of Exchequer, 
 
 299. 
 
 Leighton, Bishop, 37. 
 Liege, 161, 162-63, l6 9-7, 178, 
 
 180, 181, 182, 193-94. 
 Lisbon, 49. 
 London, 21-34, 357-58, 361 et 
 
 seq. 
 Lorraine, Prince Charles of, 323, 
 
 342. 
 
 Francis, Dnke of, 343. 
 
 Loudoun, John, Fourth Earl of, 
 
 363-64. 
 
 Louvaine, 152. 
 Lowendahl, Count, 132. 
 Luck, Mr., 186. 
 Lundin, Laird of, 24, 44. 
 Lyttelton, Sir George, Bart., 218. 
 Sir Richard, K.B., 218. 
 
 MACDONALD, SIR ALEXANDER, 
 
 93- 
 
 Mackenzie, Sir George, Lord 
 
 Advocate, xxxiv, xxxvii. 
 M'Culloch, Marion, xxxi, xxxii. 
 M'Kaill, Rev. Hugh, 120. 
 Mansfield, Lord, 364. 
 March, Lord (see Queensberry, 
 
 Duke of). 
 
 Marie Amalie, Archduchess, 337. 
 Maria Theresa, Empress, 149-50, 
 
 341, et seq. 
 
 Marinasa, opera-dancer, 49, 57. 
 Marischal, Earl, xlvi. 
 Marlborough, Charles Spencer, 
 
 Second Duke of, 27. 
 
 Sarah, Duchess of, 189. 
 
 Marr, M. de, 203. 
 
 Maxwell, Lady Winifred, of Niths- 
 
 dale, ii. 
 
 Father, 171. 
 
 Lady Anne, 329. 
 
 Melville, George, First Earl of, 
 
 xxxiv. 
 Mhnoires de la Maison Brande- 
 
 bourgh, 115. 
 Minto, Lady, 244. 
 Mitchell, Sir Andrew, 292-93. 
 
 Rev. W., 292. 
 
 Monro, Prof. Alexander, 93. 
 
 Dr., 49, 57,93. 
 
 Montague, Mrs. Elizabeth, 25. 
 Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley, 354, 
 
 366 et seq. 
 Moredun, xxxii. 
 Mount-Edgcumbe, George, First 
 
 Earl, 29. 
 Mure, Mr., of Caldwell, li. 
 
 Mrs., of Caldwell, xxv, xlviii. 
 
 Captain Alexander, 203. 
 
 Elizabeth, of Caldwell, xxv, 
 
 xlvi, 354. 
 
 Jean, of Glanderstone, 131. 
 
 Murray, Lady Elliot, xxvi. 
 Mrs., of Cringletie, xlvi. 
 
 Naphtali, or the Wrestlings of the 
 
 Church, xxxiii. 
 
 Nassau- Weilbergh, Prince of, 94. 
 Nassau, John William Friso, Prince 
 
 of, 130. 
 Needham, John T., F.R.S., 158-59, 
 
 224 et seq., 241, 266, 323. 
 Nether- Bow Port, 245.
 
 INDEX 
 
 385 
 
 Newcastle, Thomas, First Duke of, 
 
 24, 299. 
 Nithsdale, William, Fifteenth Earl 
 
 of, 329. 
 
 Winifred, Countess of, 329. 
 
 Nivernois, Due de, 369. 
 
 Norfolk, Charles, Tenth Duke of, 
 
 144. 
 
 O'FARREL, Mr., 331. 
 O'Lelly, 240. 
 Ormond, Duke of, xlvi. 
 Osburgh, Bishop of, 195. 
 
 PALFY FAMILY, 150. 
 
 Palfy, Count, 219. 
 
 Patine, Mdlle., 199 et seq. 
 
 Peggie from Edinburgh, 138. 
 
 Pelham, Henry, Chancellor of 
 Exchequer, 29. 
 
 Miss, 29. 
 
 Penn, William, xxxv. 
 Perry, Young, 190. 
 Pitt, Mr. (Lord Chatham), 364, 366. 
 Polton, xliv, i, 372, 376-7. 
 Portland, First Duke of, 98. 
 Poyntz, Right Hon. Stephen, 189, 
 192. 
 
 Mrs., 190, 192. 
 
 Principles of Political Economy, 
 371- 
 
 QUEENSBERRY, DUKE OF (' Old 
 
 Q.'), 29. 
 
 RACHEL, Chambermaid, 6. 
 Rainy, Peggie, Ivi, 217, 221, 234, 
 
 240, 243, 360. 
 Ranelagh, Iviii, 27. 
 Rattray, John, Ivi, 5, 50, 51, 52, 
 
 216. 
 
 ' Recollects,' Order of, 143, 331-32. 
 Richardson, Samuel, 208. 
 Robinson, Sarah, 25. 
 Sir Thomas (Earl of Gran- 
 
 tham), 299. 
 
 2 
 
 Rocoux, Field of, 180. 
 
 Romney, George, painter, Ivi, 375. 
 
 Rotterdam, 58, 62-64, 65, 66, 69, 
 
 70, 71. 
 
 Royale, Madame, 323. 
 Rutherford Peerage, Iv. 
 
 SAARDAM, 116-17. 
 
 St. Alban's, Duke of, 288. 
 
 St. Cecilia Society, 320. 
 
 St. Philip, fort of, Iviii, 134, 207. 
 
 Saltfoot Controversy, xxix. 
 
 Saxe, Marshall, 132, 180. 
 
 Scheveling, 98. 
 
 Scotland's Grievances, xxxiii. 
 
 Scott, George Lewis, 25. 
 
 Seton of Touch, xxxix. 
 
 Sevigne, Madame de, Ivi. 
 
 Sharpe, Charles Kirkpatrick, xliv. 
 
 Sheldon, Elizabeth, 376. 
 
 Sinsokie, Princess, 219-21. 
 
 Somerville, James, Eleventh Lord, 
 xxviii, xxxi. 
 
 Spa, Iv, 184^^., 187-89, 210-15, 
 221-23. 
 
 Spencer, John (First Earl Spencer), 
 189. 
 
 Mrs., 190. 
 
 Stadtholder (see William iv. and 
 William v.). 
 
 Stair, James, First Viscount, xxxiv, 
 xliii. 
 
 ' Stair's Grey Horse, ' 279. 
 
 Stamper, actor, 46. 
 
 Steuart, Agnes, of Goodtrees (see 
 Buchan, Countess of). 
 Elizabeth, xlvi, 30, 368-69. 
 
 Margaret, of Coltness (see 
 
 Calderwood, Mrs.). 
 
 Sir James, of Goodtrees, Lord 
 
 Advocate, xxxi-xli. 
 
 Sir James, of Coltness, Solici- 
 tor General, xlii-iii. 
 
 Sir James, ' Political Econo- 
 mist,' xlvi et seq,, liv et seq., 183, 
 365 etseq., 368, 370-71. 
 
 B
 
 3 86 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Steuart, Denham, Sir James, of 
 
 Coltness, 165, 368, 370. 
 
 Sir David, of Coltness, xli. 
 
 Sir John, of Allanbank, 370. 
 
 Marianne (see Murray, Mrs. , 
 
 of Cringletie). 
 
 Marion, of Coltness, 25. 
 
 Lady Frances, xvii et seq., n, 
 
 2OI, 2l6, 220, 223, 371. 
 Stewarts of Allanton, xxix. 
 Stewart, Sir James, of Kirkfield, 
 
 Provost, xxix-xxxii, 379. 
 
 Archibald, of Mitcham, 40. 
 
 Sir Thomas, ' Gospel Colt- 
 ness,' xxxv, xxxvii. 
 Stirling of Garden, xxxix. 
 
 of Keir, xxxix. 
 
 of Kippendavie, xxxix. 
 
 Strange, James, 374. 
 
 -Mrs., 374. 
 Isabella (see Wolfe-Murray, 
 
 Mrs.). 
 
 Sir Robert, 375. 
 
 Sutherland, Countess of, xlvii. 
 Swarkstone Bridge, 9. 
 
 TARGOW, 127. 
 
 Tirlemont, 150, 160. 
 
 Tour through the Low Countries, A, 
 
 131. 
 
 Townley, Col. Francis, 158-59. 
 
 Mr., 158, 225-26. 
 
 Townsend, Miss, 288 
 Traill, Agnes, 34. 
 
 Mr., of Jamaica, 34, 35. 
 
 Mrs., of Jamaica, 34, 35. 
 
 ' Tr&bnciers ' of Liege, 162-63. 
 Trelawny, Sir John, M.P., 9. 
 
 Lady, 9, 34. 
 Tron, St., 181, 232. 
 Tubingen, 366, 368. 
 
 VAUXHALL, Iviii, 27. 
 Vindication of Newton's Chronology, 
 liv. 
 
 WALES, GEORGE, PRINCE OF, 24, 
 
 25- 
 
 Walpole, Horace, Ivii-viii, 300. 
 Ward, Mr., 218. 
 
 Mrs., actress, 46, 325. 
 
 Warwick, Mrs., 144. 
 Webb, Mr., 47, 56, 117. 
 Wemyss, Lady Frances (see_ Steuart, 
 
 Lady Frances). 
 
 Janet, Countess of, 165, 220. 
 
 Whitnor, Mr., 305, et seq. 
 Miss, 307. 
 
 William iv., Stadtholder, 62. 
 
 William v., Stadtholder, 62, 94-95. 
 
 Wodrow, Rev. Robert, xxxvi, 
 xxxvii i, xlii. 
 
 Wolfe-Murray, James (see Cringle- 
 tie, Lord). 
 
 Mrs., of Cringletie, 375. 
 
 Worsley, Sir Thomas, Bart., 196. 
 Lady Betty, 196, 205. 
 
 YORK AND ALBANY, H.R.H. Ed- 
 ward Augustus, Duke of, 26. 
 
 Young, Elizabeth, of Netherfield, 
 376. 
 
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